Children’s rights
The Convention on the Rights of the Child highlights the need to promote equality in communication between health care professionals and children seen in health care (Unicef, 2018).
In this regard, participation and person-centeredness is important in the interaction with each child to provide adequate information on the radiographic process in a way that the child can understand.
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, article 24:
- Children shall have the right to care as is necessary for their well-being.
- They may express their views freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters, which concern them in accordance with their age and maturity.
- The child's best interests must be a primary consideration.
(Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, article 24).
Children’s development
Children´s cognitive development is according to Piaget divided into 4 stages (Piaget 1953).
0-2 years: Sensorimotor stage
- Experience the world through senses and action
3-6 years: Preoperational stage
- Egocentric
- Symbolic and animistic thinking
7-11 years: Concrete operational stage
- Understand other people´s perspective
- Thinking logical about concrete things
12 – years: Formal operational stage
Interaction with children
As health care professionals in a radiology department, we need to keep in mind, that this high technology environment, which is our everyday environment, is a place that may bring forth various feelings in a child.
First, it may be a new and unknown place, that seems frightening, leading to feelings of anxiety and distress.
Following, the reason for the visit in the Radiology Department may be due to illness or injury also causing anxiety and maybe pain, which may be exaggerated through procedure-related pain (Björkman 2014).
The interaction between the radiographer and the child is vital for the outcome of the examination (Björkman et al 2013).
The interaction may be challenging – especially when meeting a child with special needs such as for example autism spectrum disorders (Gimbler Berglund et al 2013).
Research shows the distribution of verbal interaction between children and radiographers during a radiographic procedure (Björkman et al 2013).
Age groups
|
Task focused utterances
|
Socio emotional utterances
|
3-6 years
|
70.3%
|
29.7%
|
7-11 years
|
75.2%
|
24.8%
|
12-15 years
|
83.1%
|
16.9%
|
Total
|
75.0%
|
25.0%
|