Designing university students’ health surveillance system in Iran from stakeholders’ opinion

BACKGROUND: The university student health surveillance system can play a key role in the health promotion of the educated class of the society. This can be done through collecting information related to health and using it for screening and prevention of disease. Hence, this article will be based on the necessity of existence of such system. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used interview and focus group discussion in this qualitative study. The participants were the health system authors, experts, student service administrators, and also students. Content analysis was done after data saturation by the research team. RESULTS: Based on thematic analysis, 249 codes were obtained, and about 20 themes or main expressions were extracted by separating purported sentences and combining them, and omitting overlaps. These themes were summarized into 13 subcategories and finally 4 main categories. The four categories included necessity of surveillance, stewardship, components of health surveillance system, and administrative consideration. CONCLUSIONS: From the participants’ point of view, it seems necessary to have a health surveillance system for students; this system must be in accordance with the health system of the country. The Ministry of Health is the best option for stewardship of the system; however, it needs universities’ support. Need assessment, performing a pilot study, and considering a program for quality control can guarantee for success in this program.