Questionnaire Results

The purpose of the questionnaire was to elicit adolescent views about healthcare and medical decision making and to present another method for them to review a sample of medical devices. Appendix 5 presents the questionnaire.

59 questionnaire responses were obtained from the workshops. The total number of questionnaires did not correspond with the total number of participants (71) due to some participants having to leave the pilot workshop due to other commitments (5 students) and secondly there was the issue that not all participants left their questionnaires at the end of the lesson. It was considered by the teachers that due to the time pressures at the end of the lesson, some questionnaires would have been accidentally picked up by the students and taken away with the other resources. Six questionnaires were returned at the end of the workshop sessions but were not filled in and were not included in the analysis. This was perceived to be a potential flaw of the design of the workshop as the questionnaire positioning at the end of the lesson resulted in poor attention levels and failure of some of the participants to fully complete the task.

Questions 1-4 were standard questions designed to ensure that the participant consented to use of the data provided and that they understood the assurances of confidentiality and the requirement for truthfulness of responses and the freedom to miss out questions at their discretion.

126 Questions 5 through to 11 on the questionnaire dealt with adolescent health awareness and sought to determine when young people begin to take control over their health and wellbeing.

Questions 14, 15, 21 and 22 displayed images of medical devices and required the adolescent to provide their initial reactions to the aesthetics, perceived boredom of use and complexity of device.

Questions 12 and 13 (asthma specific questions), 16,17 and 18 (vision questions) and 19 and 20 (diabetic questions) attempted to elicit views from adolescents who may have experience with medical devices or items which augment their wellbeing through use of an assistive technology i.e. glasses or contact lenses.

Finally questions 23, 24 and 25 elicited the personal details from the adolescent participants so that comparisons could be made between different age groups.

Participants were discouraged from discussing their questionnaire so that responses would not be biased through peer influence.

Figure 4.9 Demographics of questionnaire participants. (Qu23/24/25)

Figure 4.9 displays the age and school year breakdown of the questionnaire participants and the division of male and female participants. 39 males filled in the questionnaire and 16 females. The four outstanding questionnaires did not

127 indicate sex or age. It was believed that this omission was due to the positioning of these questions at the end of the questionnaire and that some participants did not have time to fully complete this task. 40% of the participants who filled in the questionnaire were male and aged 15. This is primarily due to the fact that workshop ‘Group 3’ was a Design and Technology GCSE class where all attendees were boys.

58 responses were obtained answering Question 5 - Do you know the name of your family doctor? (see Figure 4.10). Forty participants responded that they knew the name of their family doctor. Responses from four of the participants did not have associated ages and so have not been included in the bar chart. Of the 54 responses who provided their age 19% of the population who did not know the name of their family doctor were 15 year olds and 11% accounted for 16/17 year olds. Within this query only one female participant (aged 15) was unaware of the family doctors details.

Figure 4.10 Awareness of health issues. (Qu5)

Twenty six responses stated that they do not go to the GP unaccompanied, the inference being that they attend those appointments with a parent or guardian. The breakdown of ages for those who indicated that they attend unaccompanied is shown in Figure 4.11. Eleven respondents aged 14 years and younger, including 6 students under the age of 11 years, responded that they attend GP clinics on their own.

128 Figure 4.11 Awareness of health issues. (Qu7)

Figure 4.12 shows the adolescent’s responses of where they source medicines from. The results from Question 8 suggest that adolescents are still dependent to some extent on family members for providing medication. This is demonstrated by the fact that aside from the results describing access to prescriptions, family members are consistently cited by the adolescent population consulted as sources of medication. However the responses also suggest that adolescents are aware of the places to obtain over the counter medicines and indicate that shops and the pharmacy, particularly to obtain painkillers, allergy relief and cold remedies, are the most likely places where they would source these items.

Figure 4.12 Awareness of health issues. (Qu8)

129 The responses provided for the ‘first aid’ category could indicate that within the home environment there appears to be some degree of autonomy for the adolescent whereby they have access to and source items from a medicine cabinet or box. 34% of the responses offered by the adolescent participants identified this option for their access to medical first aid provisions.

Figure 4.13 is the combination data from three example ailments, a verruca, stomach ache and asthma. These conditions were combined in the analysis to get an overview of who adolescents would consult about a range of healthcare issues.

From the data it is evident that adolescents would most likely talk to their parents stating that they would definitely talk to them (137 responses) regarding healthcare issues, with other family members (95) and nurses (88) being identified as joint second preferred choices with regard to healthcare discussions. Teachers (63), friends (60) and doctors (60) provided the next grouping of preferred persons where the adolescents stated that they would definitely consult those people.

Figure 4.13 Awareness of health issues. (Qu9/10/11)

The data suggest that adolescents prefer to discuss healthcare issues and/or ailments with people they know. Examples where adolescents indicated they would not refer to those people and services about healthcare issues included pharmacist (71), social worker (60), school nurse (47), the internet (52) and to a lesser extent help-lines (33). These scored relatively poorly and

130 demonstrated that adolescents may require a degree of familiarity when broaching the issue of their own health.

With regard to aesthetics (Fig 4.14), the range of devices used as examples have indicated that adolescents are not satisfied with current devices and support the findings from the other workshop activities.

Only the inhaler and the oxygen mask prompted further comments from the students within the questionnaire. Many of the opinions stated echoed the sentiments suggested in the earlier workshop activities and these were included in the qualitative analysis. A few examples of which included:

“When I first had one it used to frighten me when I pressed the button to squirt the gas” (Inhaler)

“This looks like quite a simple device to use” (Inhaler)

“Should get different coloured cases e.g. bright pink” (Inhaler)

“This product could look quite frightening” (Oxygen Mask)

“May be uncomfortable to wear” (Oxygen Mask)

“Looks quite comfortable” (Oxygen Mask)

Although few comments were made, the questionnaire responses support the notion that healthy adolescents can contribute opinions about medical devices even from minimal information and imagery. These findings may have implications for adolescent satisfaction, and user requirements of medical devices, particularly if first impressions exhibit unenthusiastic responses.

131 Figure 4.14 Visual assessments of four devices. (Qu14/15/21/22)

4.9.4.1 Questionnaire Conclusions

The results obtained suggest that adolescents are aware of health issues and that there are ways in which they gradually assimilate autonomy over this element of their lives for example going to the doctors unaccompanied, buying their own over the counter medicine and through decision making about who to talk to about healthcare issues.

The questionnaire has not provided conclusive answers about when adolescents take on their own medical decision responsibilities and further work and a greater population sample would be required to breakdown the age ranges (early, mid and late adolescence) to determine when within the adolescent years these changes occur.

With regards to adolescent requirements of medical devices the questionnaire provides a snapshot of information and should be considered alongside the other sources of data obtained from the workshop.

4.9.4.2 Limitations

Non-response to some questions was a downfall of this method. This may be due to the timing of the questionnaire being issued at the end of the workshop.

132 Following activities which were designed to involve the adolescents and promote active participation the questionnaire may not have engaged the group as much and may therefore account for the poor responses.

Alternatively it may have been difficult to engage the group with any task during the late stages of lesson due to the impending break time which the students would be looking forward to, a rationale which was suggested by the teaching staff.

Despite attempts made to limit discussion between adolescent participants, the responses from this questionnaire have to be considered with caution as it is possible that the influence of peers or the respondents own perceptions may lead to distortions where the adolescent wishes to appear more ‘grownup’

or independent than they actually are. Whereby the answers given may present lower age ranges for the healthcare decisions than may be true.

To gain a more accurate representation of adolescent healthcare decision making, further testing of the questionnaire is required along with a larger population sample. If it could be coupled with responses from parents as well as adolescents this may help to provide a full picture of the issues from the perspective of both maturing adolescent and invested parent.