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How, why and under what circumstances are Swedish Youth Clinics youth friendly?

Research project Sweden has a comprehensive network of “youth friendly” services, known as youth clinics, spread around the country and aimed to promoting young people’s mental and physical health. Few evaluations of this network have been published, despite the fact that it is an example of a comprehensive and consolidated nationwide network of health care services for young people.

Studies show an increase in mental health problems and certain sexual and reproductive health problems among young people living in Sweden. This calls for an in-depth exploration of how youth clinics function and opportunities for improving them. This research project aims to evaluate the youth friendliness of Swedish youth clinics, with a focus on how, why, under which circumstances, and for which groups of young people they are more or less friendly. A realist case-study design will be used. First, a representative sample of youth clinics will be assessed for their youth friendliness using a revised version of a questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization to assess youth friendliness from the young users’ perspective. Afterwards youth clinics with different levels of achievements (higher and lower scores of youth friendliness) will be selected and explored in depth through interviews and focus group discussions with health professionals and young users, and observation. Data will be analyzed and organized to develop a middle-range theory that describes the mechanisms and contextual factors that trigger youth friendliness in health services, namely why, how, under which circumstances and for what groups of young people are youth clinics friendly. This project will generate knowledge about the functioning of Swedish youth clinics and also recommendations on how to improve their youth friendliness in order to enhance young people’s access to these health care services. We also expect to be able to formulate central and improved domains of youth friendliness.

Head of project

Isabel Goicolea Professor
E-mail
Email
Phone
+46 90 786 54 66

Project overview

Project period:

2015-01-01 – 2016-12-31

Funding

Finansår , 2015

huvudman: Isabel Goicolea, finansiar: FORTE, y2015: 1230,

Participating departments and units at Umeå University

Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Department of Nursing

Research area

Public health and health care science

Project description

Sweden has a comprehensive network of “youth friendly” services, known as youth clinics, spread around the country and aimed to promoting young people’s mental and physical health. Few evaluations of this network have been published, despite the fact that it is an example of a comprehensive and consolidated nationwide network of health care services for young people. Studies show an increase in mental health problems and certain sexual and reproductive health problems among young people living in Sweden. This calls for an in-depth exploration of how youth clinics function and opportunities for improving them.
This research project aims to evaluate the youth friendliness of Swedish youth clinics, with a focus on how, why, under which circumstances, and for which groups of young people they are more or less friendly. A realist case-study design will be used. First, a representative sample of youth clinics will be assessed for their youth friendliness using a revised version of a questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization to assess youth friendliness from the young users’ perspective. Afterwards youth clinics with different levels of achievements (higher and lower scores of youth friendliness) will be selected and explored in depth through interviews and focus group discussions with health professionals and young users, and observation. Data will be analyzed and organized to develop a middle-range theory that describes the mechanisms and contextual factors that trigger youth friendliness in health services, namely why, how, under which circumstances and for what groups of young people are youth clinics friendly. This project will generate knowledge about the functioning of Swedish youth clinics and also recommendations on how to improve their youth friendliness in order to enhance young people’s access to these health care services. We also expect to be able to formulate central and improved domains of youth friendliness.
Latest update: 2018-06-20