title: The meaning of stressful life experiences in nine- to eleven-year-old children: a phenomenological study.
abstract: The meaning of stressful life experiences was explored in 14 children, 9 to 11 years of age, using the phenomenological method. Data from audiotaped interviews were analyzed using the methodological approach of Giorgi. The children identified 17 categories of situations concentrated within three principal dimensions: feelings of loss, feelings of threat to self, and feelings of being hassled. The participants indicated that experiences related to loss, although infrequent, were of great consequence in their lives. The interviews demonstrated the frequency of situations that evoke feelings of threat to self or create hassles in children's lives.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jacobson
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological / Q000379:methods; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012107:Research Design