Achieving the standard of the school health nursing process in elementary schools of Kerman, Iran

BACKGROUND: Considering the school nursing standards, which is the most important and vital element of the school health team, can be a fundamental step toward solving the current and future problems of the school and society health. The present research was done with the goal of determining the current situation of the standard of the school health nursing process in elementary schools of Kerman, Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present research is a quantitative, descriptive study and was done between the years 2009 and 2010 through conducting an opinion poll. In this study, first the international standards of school nursing were searched and extracted from informational sources. Then, a questionnaire was designed based on the standards of the school nursing process and its related indicators in 6 areas. This questionnaire had two parts. The first part had the respondents’ demographic information, answering was optional, and the second part of the poll was about each of the indicators. After preparing the questionnaire and determining its validity and reliability, it was distributed among the 120 samples (60 health trainers and 60 of Kerman’s elementary school staff), and their opinions were gathered and analyzed through statistical-descriptive analysis. FINDINGS: The results of this research demonstrate that approximately all the above mentioned standard areas in the country were applied (98%). The rate of acquiring the standard of nursing process was high (90%) in some areas (Investigative area) and low (30%) in some other areas (diagnosis area). CONCLUSIONS: In total, the rate of acquiring the majority of indicators of nursing process standards has an average percentage. It is suggested to use schools health professionals to raise the indicators of the standard of the school nursing process (the indicators which had low or average acquiring rate), and to raise the performance quality.