Abstract:

Why is it important to address the perception of health that our young students have?

Mainly for two reasons:
1) Health is a global, transversal concept, which involves a set of values, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, in relation to ourselves, to others and to the environment in which we live. It is the conception of a lifestyle.
2) From the point of view of teaching, it is an important concept that needs to be developed in the classroom and is the fundamental idea on which health education -which appears transversely in the areas of the school curriculum- is built.

What have we done to approach this view of young people? We are carrying out an extensive research project that addresses the competences acquired by students by using a questionnaire that includes open questions related to the view that they have of health, of the problems that they know related to health, the way to prevent them and of how to deal with specific health problems that occur at their age.

Young students were asked to point to at least five words related to the term "health". This article provides the first data obtained in relation to the conceptions on health given by students of Primary and Secondary School.

The questionnaire was answered by 731 students, of which 343 were boys and 386 girls. It was completed in the provinces of Valencia (222 replies), Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands (229 replies), Teruel, in the region of Aragón (87 replies), in the Basque Country (98 responses) and in Cuenca, in Castilla-La Mancha (95 responses), trying to find a balance between educational establishments in rural (43.2 %) and those in urban areas (56.8%) and constituting a representative sample of public (73%) and private schools (27%).

In order to know the progression of the knowledge of the concept of health over time and the influence of education, the questionnaire was completed by students in their last year (6th grade) of Primary Education (57.3% of the questionnaires) and the last year (4th grade) of compulsory Secondary Education (42.4%), in order to address the knowledge of this concept at the end of compulsory education.

The terms expressed in the answers were categorized into five levels of complexity according to the concept outlined by Gavidia (1993).

What perception have young people of health? In a first approximation to the results we can say that students understand health as a state of wellbeing, as an absence of disease, but also, and above all, as an action to get a better quality of life by maintaining a series actions or behaviours: better food, avoid sedentary lifestyle, avoid consuming drugs, physical exercise, etc. But at the same time we observe significant shortages such as the lack of integration of the environment in this concept and the deficient vision of the community. The environment because it is a determinant of health that facilitates or hinders certain behaviours and establishes the quality of life. The community or public health vision because it is a global issue that involves everyone equally and because the health of part of the population interferes with the health of the rest.

Keywords:

Health, young people, compulsory education.