The school health nurse's assessment of a successful health dialogue

The purpose of this paper is to achieve a deeper understanding of the learning processes that occur within a regular health dialogue between pupils and school health nurse from the school health nurse's perspective. The study used a grounded theory approach for the data collection and analysis. Eight experienced school health nurses were interviewed using a semistructured 'interview guide'. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. A detailed analysis presented the processes involved and the core category emerged as creating a communicative room to learn about health. The core category contained factors related to competencies, authenticity, reflective openness and environmental support, which was the basis for learning processes and a successful health dialogue. This paper adds to our understanding of the processes in school health nursing and the learning about health which takes place within a health dialogue.