Perceptions of Primary Education Staff Regarding the Necessity of the School Nurse

Abstract

Introduction: School Nursing and Primary Education aim to promote student health and academic success. The role of the School Nurse (SN) is important as it works with teachers, whose perceptions are important in staffing schools with SN.

Aim: To investigate the perceptions of primary education teachers regarding the necessity of SN and the influencing factors.

Material and Method: The sample of the study led to 120 primary education teachers, working in primary schools in the four Directorates of Primary Education of Athens in the region of Attica. A questionnaire with socio-demographic and professional characteristics and the Greek version of the scale for the assessment of the perceptions of the role of SN (POSNAR) were used to collect the data. The scale includes 53 questions and the answers are given on a 5-point likert scale. The statistical analysis of the data was done with the statistical package SPSSv.26.0, statistical significance was set at p=0.05.

Results: The role of the SN was significantly recognized in terms of providing Specialized Nursing Interventions (4.6± 0.4) and Education/Information (4.1±0.6), while moderate recognition was found for Skills and Nursing Interventions (3.2 ±0.7). The three dimensions were positively correlated with each other (p<0.001). The educational level influenced the dimension Skills/Nursing Interventions (p=0.019), while the position of responsibility (p=0.048) and attending a first aid course (p=0.050) influenced the dimension Specialized Nursing Skills. Case management stress during the absence of a SN influenced the dimension Specialized Nursing Skills (p=0.002), which was positively correlated with the years of work (p=0.032). A positive correlation between this stress was also found with the Education/Information dimension (p=0.001). Stress of incident management during the school nurse's absence and the educational level emerged as independent factors for the significance of the school nurse’s role.

Conclusions: Primary care educators largely recognize the significance and necessity of the SN but are not aware of the importance of their role in providing holistic care, including mental health and academic success of students. There is a need for strategies to inform teachers and employ with SN at schools.

Keywords: Primary education, school nurse, teachers, perceptions.