Published in

MDPI, Children, 8(8), p. 622, 2021

DOI: 10.3390/children8080622

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Trajectories of Health Status during the Transition from School to University: Piloting the Method of Biographical Mapping in German Medical Students

Journal article published in 2021 by Katharina Diehl ORCID, Jana Lindenthal ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Health status and health behavior change during the transition from school to university. However, it is still unclear whether these changes occur at specific points in time, and whether these changes are stable. Therefore, our aim was to conduct a pilot test on biographical mapping (BM) for the first time in this research area in order to map the trajectories of the health status of university students over time. This enabled us to also test the practicability of BM, and to assess the agreement of the findings of BM with those of a standardized questionnaire. We included 30 fourth-year university students. First, they filled in a standardized questionnaire on their sociodemographic information, current health status, and health status compared with that for their final year of school. Second, they filled in a BM grid that allows for drawing the changes in health status that have taken place over the transition period. The health status changed during the transition (e.g., slight decline in general subjective health), and was related to specific events before and after the transition (e.g., examinations), showing that all health variables were not stable over time. The findings of BM were also reflected in the standardized questionnaire. Using BM revealed the changes in health during a six-year-period, including the school–university transition. The identified changes in health during transition and at specific time points underline that not only assistance before the transition, but also psychological support during studies, seems to be important for the health promotion of students. Besides this, BM seems to be a useful, although time-consuming, instrument for which the results were similar to those in the questionnaire.