School Health Teachers as Partners in Diabetes Caring: Maternal Perspectives

School nurses' competency in supporting students with type 1 diabetes: A mixed methods systematic review

Aim To evaluate school nurse and family-reported perceptions of school nurse competencies in supporting students with Type 1 diabetes.

DESIGN

Mixed methods systematic review of the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology.

DATA SOURCES

Five academic databases (PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science, Embase, and Research Information Sharing Service) were used as data sources.

REVIEW METHODS

Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies published between 2014 and 2023 were included. Two authors independently assessed the eligibility and quality of the included studies. The quality of the included studies was evaluated using a mixed methods assessment tool.

RESULTS

Thirteen qualitative studies, 11 quantitative studies, seven non-randomized studies, and four mixed studies met the inclusion criteria. Consequently, five competencies and 11 sub-competencies were derived under two themes. The two themes were "demand for training in school diabetes care" and "demand for more active cooperation." In particular, the literature confirmed challenges in school nurses' utilization of diabetes devices despite moderate to high confidence in basic diabetes care tasks.

CONCLUSIONS

This systematic review offered useful information from the perspective of stakeholders (school nurses, parents, and students) regarding school nurses' competencies in caring for students with T1D. This can help us understand the various tasks and requirements faced by school nurses, and future capacity development interventions for school nurses that consider these are needed.

Knowledge of and attitude toward diabetes care as predictors of school nurses' partnership with parents: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Collaboration between parents and school nurses is important for effective healthcare in schools. This study focuses on the competency of school nurses, which encompasses their knowledge and self-efficacy in diabetes care, and investigates how these factors, along with workload, influence healthcare partnerships in schools. However, it is unknown whether school nurses' knowledge and self-efficacy about diabetes care, as well as their workload, affect school healthcare partnerships concerning children with type 1 diabetes.

AIM

This study aimed to investigate the impact of school nurses' self-efficacy, knowledge, attitude, and role overload on healthcare partnerships with parents of children with type 1 diabetes in schools.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional, descriptive design.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Between December 2023 and January 2024 in South Korea, 142 elementary- and middle-school nurses participated in this study.

METHODS

School healthcare partnership, self-efficacy in diabetes education, knowledge of and attitude toward school healthcare for type 1 diabetes, and the role-overload scale were utilized in the analysis. Data were analyzed using multiple regression.

RESULTS

Knowledge of school healthcare (β = 0.34, p < .001) and attitude toward it (β = 0.29 p = .001) for type 1 diabetes, as well as the grade level of the current employing school (β = -0.15, p = .039) were predictors of school healthcare partnerships. These three variables explained 30.3 % of the total variance in school healthcare partnerships (F = 21.44, p < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

Knowledge of school healthcare and attitudes toward it for type 1 diabetes were identified as factors in school nurses' school healthcare partnerships. Therefore, interventions to strengthen school nurses' competencies should be developed to improve school healthcare partnerships.

Development and Testing of the School Healthcare Partnership Scale for Parents

BACKGROUND

Cooperation between parents and school nurses is essential for the successful completion of school courses and a healthy school life for children with long-term conditions. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and test a scale to measure parental perceptions of partnerships between school nurses and parents in the school health care (SHC) system for children with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

METHODS

The content validity, factorial structure validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity, known-group validity, internal consistency reliability, and test-retest reliability of the School Healthcare Partnership Scale for Parents (SHCPS-P) were evaluated. Data were analyzed by performing exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Pearson's correlation, Cronbach's α, and independent t-tests. The total sample included 155 parents for the EFA and 49 parents for the stability test. Seventeen items, grouped into 3 dimensions, were extracted through principal axis factoring.

RESULTS

The total variance explained by these factors was 53.57%. The scale demonstrated a high correlation with parental satisfaction regarding school nursing and a moderate correlation with diabetes-related safety, thereby showing convergent validity. A low correlation with empathy demonstrated discriminant validity. A significant difference existed in the partnership scores in known-group comparisons. Cronbach's α was 0.95, and the test-retest correlation coefficient was 0.95, which showed reliability.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests that the SHCPS-P is a reliable and valid tool for measuring the perception of SHC partnership among parents of children with T1D and can be used as an indicator to measure parents' perspectives about SHC.