The professional experiences of school nurses who work outside of urban areas are not often described. We used data from a 2019 statewide survey of school nurses to describe differences between the urban and non-urban (urban cluster and rural) school nurse workforce in New Mexico. Non-urban school nurses were twice as likely as urban nurses to provide clinical services to multiple school campuses ( P < .001) and more likely to serve both elementary and secondary school settings ( P = .002). They were less likely than urban school nurses to be bachelor's prepared, or to have received recent continuing education on diabetes ( P < .001), reproductive health ( P = 0.02), LGBQ+ and transgender student health ( P < .001, for each), and suicide risk assessment and screening ( P = .012). Our findings underscore concerns about geographic differences in the school nursing workforce in terms of educational preparation and student access that could potentially limit the school nurse role in advancing child health equity.
School nurses are critical components of school-based interdisciplinary teams supporting student behavioral health. The purpose of the present study is to understand the extent to which school nurses in New Mexico across grade levels manage emergencies related to behavioral health, violence, and trauma. The study also seeks to identify which topics the school nurses received continuing education (CE) for, and which topics they consider to be important to their practice. Analyzes of 2019 statewide survey data show a considerable number of school nurses in New Mexico provide management for behavioral health, violence, and trauma-related emergencies, and nurses in secondary schools are significantly more likely than nurses in primary schools to report managing these emergencies and to have received CE on behavioral health topics. Our findings reaffirm the essential role of school nurses in addressing emergent student health issues and underscore the need for practice- and competency-based behavioral health CE opportunities.
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