The Journal of School Nursing

Use of bibliotherapy to address childhood teasing and bullying is an innovative approach school nurses should consider as they work to promote a healthy school environment. Children’s books serve as a unique conduit of exchange between parents, teachers, and children. Bibliotherapy, using books to help people solve problems, involves three stages: identification, catharsis, and insight. These stages lend themselves well to coping with the sensitivities related to teasing and bullying. Salient research findings pertinent to teasing and bullying have made their way into the children’s literature and have been well received by children and their families over the course of the Child Adolescent Teasing in Schools (CATS) book review project and web site development. After exposure to a fictional story about teasing and bullying, children have shared their own nonfictional account of this often devastating experience and have come to develop successful coping strategies for dealing with the teasing and bullying that takes place in schools nationwide.

The components of a professional development model designed to empower school nurses to become leaders in school health services is described. The model was implemented during a 3-day professional development institute that included clinical and leadership components, especially coalition building, with two follow-up sessions in the fall and spring. Coalition building is an important tool to enhance the influence of the school nurse in improving the health of individuals, families, and communities. School nurses and nursing educators with expertise in the specialty of school nursing could replicate this model in their own regions.

Asthma is a chronic illness that affects approximately 7 million children and adolescents in the United States. Teens seem to be at higher risk for poor asthma health outcomes because of the tumultuous changes associated with adolescence. The purpose of this study was to explore experiences and behaviors related to the self-management of teens with asthma. Teens from four different high schools participated in one of four focus groups. Based on these discussions, the following themes emerged related to teens’ management of their asthma: wanting to be normal, the unpredictability of the disease, the credibility of the teen with asthma, and self-management issues. Recommendations for developing education and management strategies for teens with asthma are discussed.

As special education teachers have increasing numbers of students requiring health care procedures in their classrooms, school nurses need to help these teachers maintain a safe, healthy environment for their students. Part of this consists of having teachers know the steps to take should certain problems arise. This article examines the receptivity of using an expanded version of an individualized health care plan (IHP) to provide critical information to address health care problems, as well as having individualized education program (IEP) objectives for instructional targets identified in the IHP. The findings of this study indicate that a high percentage of school nurses and special education teachers were in favor of an expanded version of the IHP. There was also support for teaching students to independently or partially participate in performing their own health care procedures and having this instruction formalized as IEP objectives.

Elementary school-age children are particularly vulnerable to infections. While handwashing is the best method of preventing infections, many elementary schools are housed in buildings that have barriers to effective hand hygiene. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of an alcohol gel as an adjunct to handwashing in reducing absenteeism secondary to infectious illness. Two-hundred and fifty-three elementary school children were randomized by classroom into an experimental or control group. With a crossover design, all children participated in both groups, with a one-week washout period between phases. A 45-minute “Germ Unit” was taught to all children as they started the experimental phase and a standard unit on hand hygiene was taught as they started the control phase. Sixty-nine children were absent due to illness while in the control group. Thirty-nine children became ill while in the experimental group. Alcohol gel as an adjunct to handwashing was shown to be effective in reducing absenteeism due to infectious illness by 43%.

The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a range of strategies to engage and to enhance secondary school nurse involvement in teenage smoking prevention and cessation. School nurses were willing to assist students to quit smoking, but they felt unprepared. Information provided by nurses involved in a three-stage review, pilot-testing, and trial design resulted in the development of a resource for nurses. This resource comprised individual student approaches (brief intervention based on motivational interviewing and written activities designed to help students examine their smoking behavior), approaches to assist parents (letter of support for parents of students who smoke), and school newsletter items. Each component of the resource was found by school nurses to be appropriate, useful, and complementary to their other school-wide approaches to assist adolescents to quit smoking. Nurses also reported an interest to expand or to enhance their smoking cessation role in the school.

This study examined differences in student access to health services between schools with nurses 2 days/week (n = 7) compared to schools with nurses 5 days/week (n = 7). The study found statistically significant differences in numbers of nurse visits per 100 students. Of the 30 health conditions/activities investigated, 28 were statistically significantly higher with full-time school nurses than with part-time school nurses. It would be expected that 5-day/week nurses would be involved in health service activities 2.5 times as often as 2-day/week nurses. However, this study found that 21 of the 30 health service activities in schools with 5-day/week nurses were accessed by students more often than the expected 2.5 times that of the schools with nurses 2 days/week. This suggests a significant unmet need for access to health care services in schools with only 2-day/week nurses.