Factors Influencing School Health in Elementary Schools in Isfahan, Iran: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Students’ health and future health of the community are related to providing health care in schools and since in every society, different contextual factors affect this matter, the present study aims to recognize the factors influencing the health care elementary students are provided with. METHODS: This qualitative content analysis was performed in 2014 in Isfahan. This study was conducted on school health instructors of elementary schools. Through targeted sampling, 15 health care providers, two mothers and 3 principals from 23 elementary schools were selected. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were performed. Qualitative data analysis was done using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: In this study, 3 concepts were extracted: family umbrella over health (with two sub-categories of ‘family’s social status and its effect on health’ and ‘family and health’), functional resources (with two sub-categories of ‘opportunity’, ‘availability of resources for diagnosis’) and health components (with two sub-categories of ‘culture’, ‘the value of school health’). These contextual factors must be considered in providing health care for schools. CONCLUSIONS: Consideration of effective contextual factors on providing elementary students with health care can help improve health for this group.