Factors Related to School Nurse Workload

Abstract

Recognizing the need for a school nurse workload model based on more than the number of students in a caseload, the National Association of School Nurses issued recommendations related to measuring school nurse workload. Next, a workforce acuity task force (WATF) was charged with identifying the steps needed to further the recommendations. As a first step, the WATF focused on identifying existing literature and practices related to school nurse workload. The purpose of this article is to synthesize and categorize the factors that were identified, delineate sources for collecting and retrieving these factors, and make recommendations for clinicians and researchers interested in developing instruments to measure school nurse workload.

Use of the Worklife and Levels of Burnout Surveys to Assess the School Nurse Work Environment

“…workload only in terms of school nurse to student ratio, while easy to measure, ignores the contextual and organizational characteristics germane to the school nurse work environment (unsupportive administrators, limited resources, and vulnerable students; Daughtry & Engelke, 2018;Fleming & Willgerodt, 2017;Jameson, Engelke, Anderson, Endsley, & Maughan, 2018;Maughan et al, 2018). Therefore, research on workload instruments and staffing levels for school nurses must examine multiple dimensions of the work environment (Alghamdi, 2016;Bowling, Alarcon, Bragg, & Hartman, 2015;Carayon et al, 2014).…”

Public School Nursing Practice in the United States

“…Covering multiple schools can create challenges and the number of schools covered (not the number of students) can increase the likelihood of medication errors (Maughan, McCarthy, Hein, Perkhounkova, & Kelly, 2017). Along with the distance travelled between multiple schools (Jameson et al, 2017), the complexity of students including social determinants such as poverty or language literacy that are known to impact health also impact school nursing workload. Decisions on workload are predicated on staffing models that are in turn driven by overall funding for education.…”

“…Consequently, often only the number of students and sometimes student acuity is used to calculate school nurse workload. Such calculations are not evidence based and do not allow school nurses to work to their full scope of practice (Jameson et al, 2017).…”

A School Nurse Competency Framework for Continuing Education

“…The present study also identified the demand for continuing education, depending on the school nurses’ expertise. The school nurses’ work experience, clinical experience, and training are important factors in implementing school nursing [ 30 ]. Regarding Korea, the clinical career stage for the completion of continuing education for school nurses is not classified.…”