PGY-3 Pediatric Resident Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo Buffalo, New York, United States
Background: After the child's home, school represents the second most influential environment in a child's life. Medical emergencies, such as respiratory distress and seizures, account for 25% of school calls to the EMS system. Unfortunately, school emergency preparedness is often insufficient, and schools may not have the resources to provide important basic health training to all staff. To address this gap, the UB pediatric residency program partnered with the Buffalo Public School district, which serves over 32,000 students in 60 schools, to provide education on evidence-based school health management practices. Objective: Enhance the knowledge and confidence of school nurses and staff in managing common school-based medical emergencies. Design/Methods: The intervention was the provision of virtual education sessions for two different target audiences: school teachers/administrative staff and school nurses. After engaging key stakeholders in the school district, school nurses were surveyed to determine which topics required more training. Based on the results, the highest priority areas were seizures and mental health preparedness. Nurses felt comfortable with asthma and anaphylaxis management, but recommended providing training to lay staff on these topics. Thus, 30 minute virtual trainings were provided on these four topics. Pre- and post-surveys were administered immediately before and after each training, with high levels of participation. Results: 188 school teachers/administrative staff participated in the pre-survey and 71 completed the post-survey following the virtual asthma and anaphylaxis training. Recognition of correct asthma symptoms improved by over 200%. There was no significant change in the knowledge of correct epinephrine auto-injector. With regards to the seizure and mental health preparedness trainings, 22 school nurses participated in the pre-survey and 49 completed the post-survey. Of those who participated, correct identification of seizure management steps improved by over 240% from pre-post training; correct identification of the school nurse role in management of student mental health improved by 140%. 96.9% of all respondents found the sessions useful.
Conclusion(s): A brief virtual school-based medical preparedness intervention has the potential to increase both school teachers/administrators and school nurses level of knowledge and confidence in managing common health emergencies at school. Partnership between pediatricians and school districts can address medical knowledge gaps, particularly in school districts with limited resources.
