Public health nurses' approaches to early childhood physical activity in Finland.

2009

This study was conducted using five focus groups with 24 public health nurses from regional child health clinics in order to explore health professionals' perceptions concerning physical activity. Participants were professionally experienced (mean 13.9 years), female (mean 46.2 years) nurses with some training in health-enhancing physical activity. Frame analysis of verbatim transcripts resulted in four frames: the environmental frame, the family frame, the natural frame and the wellbeing and health frame. The importance of physical and social environment, especially the role of parents, was highlighted as determinants of physical activity. Furthermore, the natural characteristics of physi…