Individual Medical Emergencies Occurring at School

Introducing NASN's School Nursing Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline: Allergy and Anaphylaxis CPG and Implementation Toolkit

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are statements informed by a systematic review of research/evidence and provide recommendations for clinical practice to improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes. The National Association of School Nurses (NASN) released School Nursing Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline: Students with Allergies and Risk for Anaphylaxis, in 2023, to provide evidence-based recommendations specific to school nursing practice and support the role of the school nurse in providing high-quality care for school-age children with allergies and risk for anaphylaxis. This article will provide an overview of the CPG and Implementation Toolkit. The implementation toolkit is designed to provide school nurses with tools and resources to implement the recommendations into practice. These tools and resources include school policies; nursing assessments and intake; planning, training, implementing, and evaluating care; and data collection. Examples are discussed, including how to customize the toolkit resources to your current practice needs.

Safe Administration of Medication in School: Policy Statement

Many youth with acute and chronic health conditions require medication to be administered during the school day. This policy statement offers guidance to school physicians, community prescribers, school nurses, other school health professionals, and groups providing oversight to school health activities and ensures patient safety and equity lenses are applied to administration of medications during school and for school-related activities. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports a robust collaborative model that allows all those involved in student health, including the student and family, to communicate, participate in effective medication management, inform delegated medication responsibilities, and promote safe medication storage and administration. School medication administration protocols are developed to help prevent medication administration errors specific to potential risks in the school setting and are responsive to the maturing students' evolving understanding of their health needs, growing autonomy, and responsibility. All protocols involving school nurses, unlicensed assistive personnel, and prescribers must be consistent with state and federal regulations on scope of practice, student privacy laws, and professional nursing organization guidelines. Consistent policies and messaging on safety of the patient and the entire school community enable school health teams to ensure equitable treatment of students prescribed therapeutic agents newly regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, over-the-counter medications, or products that are currently not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Health teachers' ethical conflict experiences in the COVID-19 situation: a qualitative content analysis

Background

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, health teachers who are responsible for the health of school staff and students are experiencing many ethical conflicts, and research on this is needed.

Objective

This study was to investigate and explore the ethical conflicts experienced by health teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic situation.

Methods

This was a qualitive study using directed content analysis applied to the four principles of biomedical ethics. Study participants were a total of 26 health teachers in Seoul, South Korea. In-depth individual interviews were conducted with 14 health teachers, and focus group interviews were conducted with the other 12 (2 teams with each 6 persons). Data were collected between May-June 2022, and analyzed using a deductive approach among the qualitative content analysis of Elo and Kyngäs. This study satisfied the four aspects of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability presented by Guba and Lincoln (1989) to secure the reliability of qualitative research.

Results

The ethical conflicts related to the four principles of biomedical ethics advocated by Beauchamp and Childress (autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice), and the ethical conflicts in which overlap with the two principles of autonomy and non-maleficence, and the ethical conflicts related to miscellaneous matters or relationships, which were not included in the four principles, were investigated as the main 6 categories of ethical conflicts experienced by health teachers. Based on this, 10 generic categories and 17 subcategories were derived.

Conclusion

This study could be used as primary data for policy development and intervention research. Such engagements can help identify ethical conflicts faced by health teachers in infectious disease crises, thus improving their ability to cope.

Development and validation of the school healthcare partnership scale for school nurses

PURPOSE

This study was conducted to develop the School Healthcare Partnership Scale for School Nurses (SHCPS-S) for children with type 1 diabetes and to validate its psychometric properties.

METHODS

This was a methodological study. A total 342 school nurses in South Korea participated in the study; 171 were randomly assigned to each group for exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Data was collected from December 2021 to February 2022 via online survey. The Family Nursing Practice Scale was used to evaluate criterion validity, and the school nurse's professionalism scale and empathy were used to verify concurrent validity. Content validity review, response tests, and factor analysis were conducted.

RESULTS

A 50-items pool was created based on a hybrid concept analysis. Forty items were selected following the content validity review, using content validity index. A 20-item scale with four factors (trusting relationships, balanced responsibility, providing tailored care, and transparent and open communication) was chosen following exploratory factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis for the four factors showed an adequate model fit. The correlation coefficient with the family nursing practice and school nurse's professionalism scale were 0.642, 0.630, and 0.376. The Cronbach's α was 0.919, and the correlation coefficient was 0.768 in test-retest.

CONCLUSIONS

The SHCPS-S is a valid and reliable scale to measure school nurses' perceived collaborative relationships with parents for children with type 1 diabetes.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This scale can be used as a tool in interventional studies to enhance school healthcare partnerships.