Problems and Challenges of School Health Nursing in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, Nigeria

Purpose: This study evaluated the problems and challenges associated with school nursing in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States of Nigeria in terms of coverage, services rendered, adequacy of equipments and supplies, and involvement of other relevant professionals in school health programmes. Materials and methods: A descriptive design was adopted, and sixty schools were randomly selected from the two states. In each school, one nurse was conveniently selected to give a total of sixty respondents from a population of 171 school nurses from both states. Rustia’s school health promotion model guided the study. Validated questionnaire, interviews and review of records were the instruments for data collection. Research questions were analyzed using frequencies and percentages while the Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient Statistics was used to test the hypotheses determined at a significant level of 0.05. Results: Results showed low coverage of school health programme in Cross River (3%) and Akwa Ibom (7.2%) states. The scopes of the practice were limited to treatment of minor ailments (100%), referral services (81.7%) health education (41.7%) and first aid (16.7%). Only (18.3%) of the respondents were satisfied with equipments available for school health programme. Furthermore, health services provided by the nurses were positively and significantly related to their knowledge of roles (r=.532; df=59; p<0.05) but not on availability of material resources r=.023; df=59; p>0.05). Recommendations: It was recommended that school nurses should be well educated on the roles expected of them.