This presentation aims to explore how young people with chronic conditions make sense of their wellbeing. While numerous ‘expert’ definitions of wellbeing exist, these have often been developed to broadly apply to the general population, and are unable to capture facets that may be unique to a particular stage in development or a particular experience, such as having a chronic condition. Developing an understanding of how youth with chronic conditions understand wellbeing is needed prior to any efforts that aim to improve wellbeing within this group.
The presentation will cover how the use of a concept-mapping methodology, as outlined by Kane and Trochim (2007), allowed the development of a model of wellbeing driven entirely by young people’s perceptions. 12 young people living with chronic conditions across Australia generated over 60 statements about what wellbeing meant to them. Each participant then individually grouped these statements together into higher-order themes. Multidimensional scaling was used to determine similarities between the young people’s groupings and plot each idea about wellbeing on a point map, with hierarchical cluster analysis used to determine ‘clusters’ of statements each representing a different domain of wellbeing.
The results suggested 7 domains that contributed to the young people’s sense of wellbeing, including functional abilities, positive self-relations, engagement with meaningful activities, and supportive doctors, communities, and systems. The intricacies within and between domains will be discussed, demonstrating how the current findings relate to previous wellbeing literature. We will explore how these findings may inform practice and research, such as how health professionals may support the wellbeing of their young patients and recommendations for development and evaluation of future wellbeing interventions for this population.