School nurses’ experiences of health-promoting work to prevent stress in Swedish adolescents

Abstract

AimTo investigate school nurses’ experiences of health-promoting work to prevent stress in Swedish adolescents.Materials and methodsSwedish school nurses (n = 225) responded to a web survey with open-ended questions. The results were subjected to a qualitative content analysis.ResultsSix categories were identified from the analysis: (1) Knowledge of body and soul, (2) Identifying stress and ill health, (3) Collaborative working within/outside school, (4) Make yourself (i.e., school nurses) visible to the students, (5) Support students’ learning, and (6) Tools for stress management. One of the most important themes in preventing and counteracting stress in school-aged children and adolescents was promoting healthy living habits. That school nurses were easily accessible and visible were important for them to identify stress as early as possible. The close collaboration with the school health care team and building relationships with the students were emphasized. The stress in adolescents was largely linked to schoolwork and performance anxiety. To counteract this, the dialogue with the teachers was important to increase their knowledge of mental health problems and stress and influence the scheduling of school exams.ConclusionThe study contributes to increased knowledge in the field and provides concrete strategies for how school nurses can work to counteract stress in students.

School Nurses’ Perspectives on Health among School-Aged Children and Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The main focuses for school nurses are health promotion and preventing ill health (Persson et al, 2022). Several studies among Swedish school nurses show that school nurses are highly involved in working with mental health problems among children and adolescents (Berglund Melendez et al, 2020; Jönsson et al, 2019; Musliu et al, 2019; Persson et al, 2022). Despite this, no specific response options were provided for spontaneous visits regarding anger management, depression screening, suicidal ideations, or substance abuse.…”

“…The main focuses for school nurses are health promotion and preventing ill health (Persson et al, 2022). Several studies among Swedish school nurses show that school nurses are highly involved in working with mental health problems among children and adolescents (Berglund Melendez et al, 2020;Jönsson et al, 2019;Musliu et al, 2019;Persson et al, 2022).…”

“…The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (2021-00946). The study is a part of a larger research project, and the results from the open-ended questions included in the survey have been published elsewhere ( Persson et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Since the survey was filled out anonymously, there is no possibility of linking any responses to certain individuals. Further details about the data collection are presented by Persson et al (2022) .…”