An exploration of children’s nursing graduates’ ability to assess children’s emotional health and well-being

This exploratory, qualitative study was designed to be the first stage of an action research project to investigate whether graduates from BSc children’s nursing programmes are sufficiently prepared to assess children’s emotional health. Early identification of children’s and young people’s emotional problems is important for timely interventions to be initiated. Data were gathered from a focus group and a series of semi-structured interviews and interpreted using thematic analysis approaches. The findings indicated those interviewed can recognise when a child was emotionally unwell, reporting that assessments were brief, subjective and completed without the use of age-appropriate assessment tools. It is concluded that assessment of a child’s emotional health appears to take low priority in comparison to its physical counterpart.