The Journal of School Nursing

State immunization laws necessitate compliance for students enrolling in a public or private school system. In support of state laws, school nurses expend hours to achieve immunization compliance with school-age children. For the purpose of creating a more efficient system, researchers implemented an educational and incentive program in local elementary schools to increase tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) booster compliance rates. Students were instructed in regard to their immune systems, immunizations, and where to obtain immunizations. In addition, compliant students were entered into a drawing for an iPod Shuffle or a RipStick. In 2009, the compliance rate expanded from 4% to 57% during a 4-week intervention program. Notably, the Tdap immunization compliance rate in the previous year (2008) was 54%. Researchers concluded that the intervention did not improve compliance rates significantly.

Nurses as accessible, helping adults within schools have daily opportunities to reach adolescents with unmet mental health needs. Understanding the relationship between frequent clinic visits or somatic complaints as a sign of underlying problems, which may be organic or psychoemotional in origin, requires the unique skill set of the school nurse. The welcoming school nurse, who cares for students with acceptance and emotional availability, nurtures the development of trust and meaningful personal connection. It is through this relationship that effective care and case finding occurs. Attachment to the school nurse as a responsive adult fosters a sense of school connectedness, which is associated with academic success. Intentional Interviewing is a person-centered, evidence-based approach that can be used by school nurses in this important work.

Students with diabetes deserve a school nurse who can effectively manage the disease. Tensions between the school and families sometimes emerge when a child with diabetes goes to school. To resolve these tensions in Colorado, stakeholders collaborated to implement a statewide program to meet the needs of students with diabetes. Colorado school nursing leadership partnered with the National Association of School Nurses to adapt components of the Managing and Preventing Diabetes and Weight Gain Program (MAP), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Healthy Learner Model for Chronic Condition Management, integral to MAP, provided guidance for the Colorado Collaborative to design the Diabetes Resource Nurse Program. The program supports the practicing school nurse, and facilitates collaboration between the family, school, and health care provider. This article describes how stakeholders in Colorado chose to collaborate when faced with rising tensions over how to best manage students with diabetes.

The effects of asthma self-management education for school-age children on number of school days missed, emergency department visits and hospital admissions were evaluated through a systematic review of the published research. A total of 9 studies on asthma education programs that were conducted in schools by school nurses and health educators and targeted children 5–18 years of age were reviewed. The studies were all published between 1998 and 2009. The school-based asthma education programs delivered interventions in multiple sessions over short consecutive time periods of about a month to a month and a half. Follow-up data were collected in varying intervals from 1 month to 1 year postinterventions. Results indicated that a decrease in school days missed can be expected from such programs. The data regarding emergency department visits and hospital admissions was less definitive.

The purpose of this comparative review was to examine the legislative evolution of school guidance and school nursing over the past century, in hopes of identifying reasons why guidance counselors have been more successful in compliance to recommended ratios than school nurses. A literature review was conducted including CINAHL, MEDLINE, ERIC and other EBSCO databases. The results from this review indicate school guidance programs have been included in more federal legislation, mandating funding, education and certification requirements, which gives counselors a uniformly recognizable credential understood by educators. An extensive effort to develop a national model of school guidance has assisted counselors to uniformly show how they impact student academic success. School nurses can learn how to further integrate the school nursing role into education from the example of guidance counselors.

Adolescents experience the onset and development of several health-related behaviors. The purpose of this study is to determine health risk and promotion behaviors of adolescents between the ages of 11 and 19 who were attending and to test the reliability and validity analysis of the Turkish version of Adolescent Health Promotion Scale (AHPS). The study was a cross-sectional survey and the sample consisted of 1,351 participants. A questionnaire that included demographic information, health risk behaviors, and AHPS was used to collect data. In the current study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient for the AHPS was calculated as .92. Female students had significantly higher mean total scale scores than males (p < .05). The 11–14 age group had a statistically significant higher scale total mean score than the 15–19 age group (p = .001). International directives highlight the important function nurses fulfill in health promotion. Nurses may play a key role in school health services.