Brochures for children in an outpatient clinic

Purpose

Children`s right to information about subjects that relate to their health are well established both in the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child and in the Norwegian law about patients rights. In spite of this, written information for children and adolescents about psychiatric conditions and services is almost nonexistent, at least in Norway, while one can find a lot of information for grown-ups. The Information Group in our outpatient clinic for children and adolescents in Bodø, in the north part of Norway, wanted to give our patients informatieon about psychiatric conditions and treatment. With economic support from our government, we started our work with making brochures about our outpatient clinic.

Methods

To ensure that the information really ended up being useful fro children we chose to cooperate with a well known children`s author, Iben Sandemose. She draws marvellous illustrations and also manages to treat serios subjects with a lot of humor, something we definitely need in our field! We also wanted to cooperate with children themselves. We interviewed individuals and groups in our own clinic, and together with the author we met schoolclasses several times. The children gave suggestions and feedback about text and illustrations.

Results

The brochures were made, for 6-12 years, 13-18 years and grow-ups. The brochures got a reception far beyond our expectations, not only from our own clinic, but from other outpatient clinics all over the country. For the first time, children and youths, which are our core users have got age adjusted information about their own service. 

Conclutions

The brochures got a very positive reception, and are now used in clinics all over the country. Clearly, they met an uncovered need. More work has to be done in the following years to meet children`s needs for informations within the psyciatric field.   

Translation

The brochures are awaliable in 17 different languages.