Paper short abstract:

The study of children's experiences of pain generates knowledge that does not always recognize their voices. An essential element for exploring this experience is to consider the role children play in building their own reality and to developed an approach derived from their own perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

The study of children's experiences of illness and pain generates knowledge that does not always recognize voices and practices that give rise to the feelings, emotions and experiences of children who are in a situation of suffering. This requires being able to move to other spaces that allow not only the recognition of children and their ways of seeing and living reality, but also to co-construct a plural knowledge about those experiences. In this way, there is a need for an epistemological reflexivity that influences the production of knowledge, that addresses the relationship between its contexts of discovery and of justification. Thus, an essential element for exploring the experience of children regarding illness and suffering is to take into account the role children play in building their own reality. An approach to health and pain experiences derived from the children’s own perspectives should be developed, considering them not only as discoverers of the meanings that come from their reality but also as creators of these meanings through their own understandings and interpretations. Active participation and a significant role of children in the research are important when we investigate their health and pain experiences. The use of narratives and categories from children themselves allow us to deepen our knowledge on their everyday experiences, focusing the analysis on children’s perspective and recognizing them as narrators of these experiences.