The Impact of Comprehensive School Nursing Services on Students' Academic Performance

Abstract

Introduction: School nursing services should be evaluated through health and academic outcomes of students; however, it is observed that the number of studies in this field is limited. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of comprehensive school nursing services provided to 4th grade primary school students on academic performance of students. Methods: The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 31 students attending a randomly selected school in economic disadvantaged area in Turky. Correlation analysis, repeated measures analyses of variance, multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data with SPSS software. Results: At the end of school nursing practices, an increase was occurred in students’ academic achievement grades whereas a decrease was occurred in absenteeism and academic procrastination behaviors. Whilst it was determined that nursing interventions including treatment/ procedure and surveillance was associated to the decrease of absenteeism, it also was discovered that the change in the health status of the student after nursing interventions was related to the increase of the academic achievement grade and the decrease of the academic procrastination behavior score. Conclusion: In this study, the conclusion that comprehensive school nursing services contributed positively to the academic performance of students has been reached. In addition, it can be suggested that effective school nursing services should include services such as acute-chronic disease treatment, first aid, health screening, health improvement-protection, health education, guidance and counseling and case management.

Educational Program for School Health Nurses and Teachers Regarding Primary School Children with Epilepsy

“…This result is at the same line with that of [17], who in a similar study mentioned that, an improvement in school health nurses' attitudes after an educational program than before. From the researchers' point of view, these findings it may be related to improvement of the school health nurses' and teachers' knowledge regarding epilepsy after implementing an educational program.…”

“…Similarity, [17], who conducted a study in Turky, entitled "Educational program for nurses and its impact in comprehensive school nursing services on students' academic performance", mentioned that, an improvement was detected in school health nurses' knowledge after the educational program than before. From of the researchers' point of view, it may be related to that the teachers and school health nurses didn't take any training program about dealing with children suffering from epilepsy.…”

The Impact of School Nurses in Kentucky Public High Schools

“…Their findings supported the benefit of good health positively affecting academic outcomes for fourth-and eighth-grade achievement scores as well as lowered dropout rates. Likewise, in a more recent Turkish article published March 2017, the researchers studied 31 fourthgrade students in an economically disadvantaged area; again, their findings supported the impact of comprehensive nursing services on improved academic performance (Kocoglu & Emiroglu, 2017). The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between school nurse presence and graduation rates, absenteeism, and ACT scores.…”

Research on Academic Procrastination among OEC Students

“…Usually these people will eventually drop out of school. [23,24] In order to overcome procrastination in adults, especially among College students, the following points should be taken into consideration (Table 3):…”