School Nurse Survey Results
107 school nurses in the 5 region area (St. Louis City, St. Louis County, Jefferson County, St.
Charles County, and Franklin County) responded to the questionnaire sent from the
Gateway Immunzatio Coalition through Marjorie Cole, (title). The survey asked about 1.)
parental awareness of vaccines for their child, 2.) nurse awareness about the Vaccine for
Children (VFC) program and 3.) types of training nurses would be interested in attending.
The results will be used to design activities to better meet the needs of school nurses.
Results
1.) Parental Awarenessa. 40% of school nurses felt that parents are not aware of the immunizations that their
child needs (Table 1). If parents are aware, they thought “only because they were
told what to do” or it “depends on the [pediatricians] and how well they educate.
b. 56% of nurses do not think that parents are aware of the non-mandatory vaccines
eg. meningitis, HPV. They feel “more education needs to be done.”
Table 1. Parental awareness about immunization needs of child
Table 2. Parental awareness of non-mandatory vaccines
2.) Awareness of Vaccine for Children Program
a. Awareness of VFC is low. 57% of school nurses are not aware of the VFC program
b. Respondents felt that 95% of other school nurses are not aware of how to enroll
students in the VFC program. (Table 4).
c. Questions related to VFC include:
i. How parents can apply
ii. It is not well publicized
iii. How can it work better with schools
iv.
What is it and what does it provide
v.
Where can information about VFC be found?
Table 4. Awareness of how to enroll students in VFC programs
3.) Trainings for School Nurses
a. 84% of respondents are interested in having new school nurses attend training on
immunizations. Multiple nurses commented that they would like all nurses, not just
new nurses to attend a training.
b. Types of trainings include VFC (47.6%), how to increase immunization rates in
schools (27.9%), and refresher course on immunizations (24.4%) (see Table 5).
c. When thinking about training format, nurses mentioned that online is and email are
the preferred formats, and that offering at MASN conference would be ideal.
Table 5. Types of Trainings for school nurses
4. What nurses identified as possible solutions to increasing immunization rates?
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Easier availability
Continued follow up by school nurses
Awareness, and the doctor office needs to inform the parent that they need to let
their schools know when new immunizations have been given so that we can update
their file, especially in high school
Easily accessibly immunization at reasonable cost for those with insurance that
does not cover routine vaccinations
Access to immunizations that are inexpensive and easy to get to, especially if they
cannot get their own Dr.
Doctors doing more training with parents and nurses giving out more information
Plan to respond to needs:
Parents awareness
VFC awareness
School Nursing training
Continue to present adolescent
Immunization Presentations to youth,
who can distribute information to
parents
Theme of February GIC meeting
August Suburban School nurse training
April Webinar – focused on school
nurses. Date and time TBD
Materials contained in this document are not for publication.
Maternal, Child and Family Health Coalition
539 N. Grand Blvd., Ste. 403
St. Louis, MO 63103
www.stl-mcfhc.org
314-289-5680 or 314-289-5658 (Jill Thompson’s direct line)