Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) Honours

School

School of Psychology

Faculty

Faculty of Computing, Health and Science

First Supervisor

Associate Professor Paul Chang

Abstract

Parents are seen as the most important role models in the development of health practice behaviours, including sun safety for their children. The aim of the current study is to explore the experiences and sun protection knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of a parent of a child who has seen a UV photograph of both themselves and their child. By utilising UV flash photography, parents were able to see the damage done to their face and their child’s face caused by overexposure to the sun. The study was conducted through a qualitative, phenomenological approach, with the data analysed through the process of thematic analysis. Four main themes emerged from the data: ‘use of sun safety practices’ refers to the parents reactions to both their child and their own photographs and how the photo may have influenced them to reassess their current sun safety practices, ‘knowledge of sun safety’ related to the amount of awareness and knowledge the parent had in relation to sun safety, ‘tanning’ which represented the different attitudes parents held concerning tanning, and ‘parents expectations’ refers to what the parents expect their child to do in the future in regards to application of sun safety and how they would like them to live their lives. The findings from the current study contribute to the existing body of knowledge around sun safety practices and establish that future investigation examining parents and their children in regards to their sun safety use and attitudes in more detail is required.

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