Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115540

Nancy Mosca, PhD, RN, Nursing, Youngstown State University, One University Plaza, Cushwa Hall, Youngstown, OH 44555, Patricia M. Sweeney, JD, MPH, RN, Graduate School of Public Health, Center for Public Health Practice, University of Pittsburgh, 3109 Forbes Ave. # 210, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, 412-383-2231, sweeneyp@edc.pitt.edu, and John Hazy, PhD, Criminal Justice Department, Youngstown State University, One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555.

Schools have a moral and legal obligation to care for staff and students in the event of an emergency. Often as the only health professional in a school building, school nurses have a unique opportunity to be key contributors to emergency planning and response. However, meeting the complex needs of the school system at such a time demands a competent workforce. Recognizing this, a team of registered nurses representing public health, university faculty and school nurses developed a survey tool to assess school nurse competency in triage, incident management and additional key content areas contained in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Bioterrorism and Emergency Readiness Competencies for Public Health and National Association of School Nurses disaster preparedness publications. Surveys (n=125) were mailed to all school nurses in public and private k-12 schools in the tri-county area during May 2004. Returned school nurse surveys (n=80) reported low confidence in 93% of the surveyed bioterrorism/disaster preparedness capabilities and a high need for further training in 86% of bioterrorism/disaster preparedness competencies. Subsequently, ninety school nurses attended a full day training using the National Association of School Nurses Disaster Preparedness Curriculum. Pre and post training evaluations demonstrated significantly improved confidence levels in school nurse preparedness knowledge and indicated growth in school nurse training needs from awareness to analysis and synthesis of their role in BT /disaster preparedness, thus demonstrating the usefulness of this training curriculum to prepare nurses to participate in their district's preparedness planning.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session the participant will be able to

• Define the competencies school nurses need for bioterrorism / disaster preparedness.
• Describe the components of a comprehensive needs assessment to assess the bioterrorism / disaster preparedness level of school nurses.
• Discuss the effect of formal bioterrorism / disaster preparedness training on school nurse BT/disaster preparedness confidence levels.

Keywords: School Health, Bioterrorism

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.