Challenges and job satisfaction among Delaware school nurses

• Lillian Whitesell, Nursing, University of Delaware

• Lauren Covington, School of Nursing, University of Delaware

Delaware is one of two states that require school nurses in every school, providing unique opportunities to study the distribution of school nurses. Given this, the focus of this study was to examine the differences between school geographic locale (rural, urban, suburban) and school nurse ratings of challenges and job satisfaction. In October 2023, University of Delaware’s College of Health Sciences hosted a Professional Development Day where Delaware school nurses attended workshops and simulations to expand their skills. At the end, school nurses completed a survey ranking 12 identified challenges by their significance (higher ratings=more significant challenge) and rating job satisfaction from 0-10 (10=more satisfied). We report descriptive statistics and one-way between groups ANOVAs to explore the differences in challenges and job satisfaction of school nurses. A total of 297 school nurses across three Delaware counties registered for the event. Of the attendees, 97% were female, 87% white and 33% 40-49 years of age. Of those who completed the survey (n=174), 61.6% work in suburban areas, followed by urban (25%) and rural (14%).  The top 3 identified challenges were: heavy workload, addressing students’ mental health, and dealing with family situations at home. School nurses in rural settings reported significantly higher challenges with lack of access to care (F[2,169]=4.2, p=0.016) and technology-based student health resources (F[2,168]=4.3, p=0.015). There was no significant difference in job satisfaction between school nurses in different locales. Results indicate that geographic locale did not affect rating of challenges, with the exception of access to care and technology-based health resources. Results must be interpreted given the limitation that only 14% of school nurses were from rural schools. Future work may further explore challenges, and possible solutions, within each specific district.