Importance of a School Nurse in the Health Care of Students

This article discusses the importance of a school nurse in providing health care services to students and promoting their well-being. It explores the roles of a school nurse in direct care, leadership, ensuring a healthy environment, and promoting health through education. The article also highlights the significance of school nurses in managing chronic conditions, addressing social determinants of health, and implementing the principles of the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion.

Running head: SCHOOL NURSE 1
School nurse
Name
Institution

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School nurse
According to Loschiavo (2011), the ability of a student to learn is determined by his or
her health and well-being. Students with good health tend to be active in school activities like
learning. Good health and well-being are the key determinants of great performance in school.
Therefore, presence of nurses in learning institution is important because they help in providing
health care services to students through follow up appointments, education and assessment
(Michael, 2011). These are some of their professionalism actions required by the national
association of school nurses. Nurses are required to have positive effects towards the care of
students when proving these actions. This paper would therefore discuss the importance of a
school nurse in the health care of students.
The primary health care nurse role that will be discussed in this paper is a school nurse.
The major role of school nurses is to ensure that the students are in good health for their
academic success (Kate, 2013). This role ideally puts together education and health care. For the
nurses to ensure all students undergo a good educational process, there are vital areas they should
deal with which are clearly stated in the national association of school nursing board. These areas
includes physical, social needs, emotional and mental health of learners.
According to Susan (2015), the roles of a school nurse includes, giving direct care to
students. For example, give care to students with injuries and also those with acute illness. They
also provide education on long term management to students with special needs. One of their
primary responsibilities is to ensure that the assessment and treatment is in accordance with the
scope of professional nursing practices. Nurses are also supposed to communicate to parents
about their children’s health and give referrals to those who need advanced health care (Michael,
2010). A nurse is also responsible for developing an individual health care plan for students with

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special needs like chronic diseases and communicate it to the school personnel. This would help
them to receive good treatment from all the school personnel.
Secondly, a school nurse acts as a leader in the provision of health services (Lea, 2015).
He or she is responsible in assessing the overall system of care, developing plans to ensure
healthcare needs are met. This includes keeping information of the student’s health and
communicating confidential issues to their parents. Thirdly, a school nurse is responsible for
ensuring a healthy environment (Linda, 2013). In this case, nurses supervises immunization
processes to ensure that students get immunized for correct diseases. They also communicate to
the school about communicable diseases, ensuring playing grounds are free from health hazards
and making sure student are not bullied.
Moreover, school nurses promotes health by giving education to students (Pamela, 2018).
This includes telling them the risks of bullying others in school. They also tell them the
importance of taking medication as prescribed and doing regular exercises. Lastly, school nurses
acts as a counselor by giving students guidelines on how to manage their health and
disadvantages of smoking (Anne, 2012). They also communicate to parents on the importance of
taking their children for a checkups.
Primary care is a day to day care given to a person by a health provider (Guzys & Petrie,
2014). This health provider acts as the first advocate and chief to a continuous care and may
include other specialists who the patient may need. Primary care is an element of primary
healthcare. Primary health care refers to the crucial health care that is based on systematically
sound, socially suitable methods and technology, which makes entire health care available to all
(Guzys & Petrie, 2014). A school nurse can be referred as a primary healthcare nursing role
because his or her duties includes giving direct care to students, promoting health, acting as a

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counselor which are also the major components in the primary health care. For example, the
nursing can assist in helping a student to overcome issues like trauma, or other things which can
put his/her mental health into risk. Also, communicating of students health to the parents and
giving referral to more demanding situation makes a school nurse to be termed a primary health
care nursing role.
School nurses usually work with students between the ages of five and eighteen
(Loschiavo, 2011). These students are minor and cannot make decisions regarding their health
therefore they need an expert to help in managing their well-being hence good achieving good
education process. Some of the characteristics of this group of students includes collaborative,
adaptable, creative, curious, optimistic and enthusiastic (Maughan, 2018). In most cases, school
nurses tend to deal with children with chronic conditions such as diabetes, asthma and mental
illness brought by family issues. They are also in a position to assess and determine whether a
student has chronic disease or not. School nurses also work with students who have been
negatively affected by the chronic condition hence lowering their performance in school
(Loschiavo, 2011). For example, they can use various strategies to assist them overcome diet
related issues by advising them on what to take, following their health progress and giving them
referrals when needs be.
Social determinants of health (SDH) are conditions that determines people’s ability to
maintain daily health care. According to Loschiavo (2011) some of the SDH include gender, life
experiences, ethnicity and indigenous status. Some of these determinants can have an influence
on student’s health and wellbeing in school. School nurse is therefore able to determine each and
how it affects the student’s health (Loschiavo, 2011). For example, some of the life experiences
like losing a parent can make a student more depressed which can lead to more health problems.

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It is therefore important for school nurses to manage these problems at an early stage to avoid
poor performance of students.
One of the common health issue faced by these children is depression (Susan, 2015). This
is because school nurses reports at the end of the day shows that most of the visits were of
children with depression. This condition affects student’s mental health such that they cannot
participate well in school activities hence lowering their performance (Ann, 2014). Also,
students with depression may not be always in school and can engage in activities like taking
alcohol. School nurses should be able to identify this health issue at an early stage to avoid these
problems. One of the things which can make a student depressed is when they are trying to fit in
a certain group of students. For example, if a student comes from a poor family, he or she might
admire the expensive things with the rich students which can make them face depression. Also,
depression can be brought about by family problems. For example, an ailing parent or relative
can lead to depression among students because of fear that they may end up losing them. Lastly,
bullying in school can also lead to depression.
Ottawa charter for health promotion is a fundamental document that aims at achieving
equity in health (Anne, 2012). It also aims at minimizing differences in current health status and
ensure that all people receive equal opportunities to enable them manage health. This charter
includes five action areas for health promotion. Some of these actions include, building healthy
public policy, developing personal skills, creating supportive environment, strengthening
community actions, re-orienting health care services towards prevention of illness and promotion
of health (Anne, 2012). Building of healthy public policy brings together diverse, although
complimentary approaches which include aspects like legislation, fiscal measures, taxation and

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organizational change. These joints actions ensures that goods and services delivered to people
are safe, healthier public services, cleaner and enjoyable environment.
Creating supportive environment involves supportive and caring atmosphere to enable
people and the community practice healthy behaviors (Anne, 2012). Changing a pattern of life,
work and leisure has a great impact on people’s health. Strengthening community actions aims at
achieving one common agenda of a certain group of people which is important in the health
promotion strategy. This helps members of a community feel empowered and make decisions
regarding their health. Moreover, developing personal skills includes educating individuals so
that they are able to manage their health, cope with chronic conditions and make life decisions
(Anne, 2012). Finally, reorienting health services aims at ensuring health care systems which are
effective and leads to improved health. This should be a combined efforts of the individuals,
community, government, health professionals and institutions.
School nurses have a key role of educating students about depression and its
consequences (Lea, 2015). Building a public health policy includes putting laws and policies that
would make people in making healthy life choices. For example, banning students from coming
to school with luxurious staffs like phones will help in minimizing depression among students
those cannot afford.
Creating supportive environment is another key role a school nurse plays to ensure
students practice healthy behaviors (Lea, 2015). Depression is a serious condition among the
students and a nurse can apply this action by creating free time for the students. During this time,
the students are given guidance on how they should face some life challenges which can be
threat to their mental health.

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In strengthening the community actions, school nurses can clearly perform this role in a
school where there is aboriginal students (Lea, 2015). This include giving them a chance to make
decisions on the process of care they are comfortable. This would help them from feeling their
discriminated which is a major cause of depression.
Also, school nurses can educate students with depression on how they tackle the
situations. This can be done through an action of developing personal skills (Lea, 2015). In a
case where the students are depressed, school nurses provide guidance on how they should avoid
and manage the situations through education or counselling.
In reorienting health services, school nurses should ensure that students who are
depressed seek guidance from professionals specialized in those areas (Lea, 2015). They should
also engage them in activities which can improve their mental health like games and group
discussions.
In conclusion, school nurse plays a vital in ensuring health and well-being of the students.
Depression is one of the common problems faced by students in schools. School nurse can
manage the mental health of students by applying actions stated in the Ottawa charter of health
promotion.

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