Visiting again? Subjective well-being of children in elementary school and repeated visits to school health nurses

摘要

BACKGROUND: Children with vague complaints are without chronic illness, and who repeatedly visit the school nurse may be at risk for limited academic success. This study compares student reports of subjective well-being between children who do and do not repeatedly visit the school nurse with vague complaints. METHODS: Children in grades 4 through 6 completed the School Well-Being Profile-American English (SWBP-AE), a questionnaire with 4 well-being subscales: health status, school environment, social relationships, and school as a means of self-fulfillment. School nurses extracted data on clinic visits from clinic records. Logistic regression explored associations between well-being subscales and repeated visits to the school nurse. RESULTS: Of the 320 students participating in the study, 33 (12.04%) students made repeated visits to the school nurse. Perception of health status (OR=2.072; 95% CI=1.037, 4.163) was the only significant (p<.05) predictor of repeated visits to the nurse. CONCLUSION: Children with poor perception of their health status are more likely to repeatedly visit the school nurse. Children's perceptions of their school environment, social relationships, or school as a means of self-fulfillment are not statistically significant predictors of repeated visits to the school nurse.