Philadelphia H1N1 School Located Vaccination Program: The School Nurse Experience

Background: The Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) and the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) conducted a school located vaccination (SLV) program which employed 270 SDP school nurses to vaccinate 32,971 children with intranasal H1N1 vaccine.  

Objectives: To evaluate the experience of school nurses who participated in SLV.  

Methods: Satisfaction with preparation, training, information distributed to parents, logistics, and workload for the H1N1 SLV program was assessed for participating school district nurses via SurveyMonkey. Surveys were distributed 8 weeks after the program was completed in February 2010.  Descriptive analysis was performed using SAS.  

Results: Of the 270 SDP nurses who took part in the H1N1 SLV program, 143 responded to the survey (53%). Generally, nurses thought that SLV was not disruptive to the school’s mission. Nurses who had been in the field for over 20 years were more likely to be supportive of SLV at the start (71%) compared to those in the field 0-5 years (63%) or 6-20 years (49%) (p=0.09). School nurses believed that teachers (81%) and school administration (78%) supported the program more than parents (59%). Seventy-one percent of nurses reported that administrators and teachers were displeased that they were not offered vaccine. The logistics of the SLV program were viewed as well planned and executed according to the large majority of nurses; however, 53% percent of nurses reported difficulty in balancing the program with their normal workload.  

Conclusions: The majority of school nurses were supportive of SLV, despite disruption of their normal activities. Increased training and time to prepare before SLV might lessen the burden on nurses in the future.