Cooperation between parents and school nurses in primary schools: parents' perceptions

Cooperation between pupils' parents and school nurses is an important part of health promotion in primary schools. Developing frank and trusting relationships contributes to easy and uninhibited cooperation. Cooperation between parents and school nurses has not been widely researched internationally.

This article reports on parents' views on cooperation with school nurses in primary schools. The study aims at contributing to school nurses' work so that instead of focusing only on the children, family nursing approaches could be improved.

Nineteen parents from 13 families from southern Finland were interviewed for the study in 2004. The data were analysed by grounded theory and the constant comparative method was utilized.

Six concepts describing parents' views on cooperation were generated on the basis of the data. Cooperation consists of supporting the child's well-being. School nurses take children's and parents' concerns seriously and intervene effectively if the child's health is threatened. School nurses' expertise is not very visible within school communities. Hoping to receive information and desiring parental involvement are important concepts of cooperation with the school nurse. The child's family is not sufficiently known or taken holistically into consideration when the child's health is promoted. Parents are the initiators of cooperation within school health care and parents describe this by the concept of one-sided communication.

Parents do not know about school nurses' work and school health services. They would like to be more involved in school nursing activities. When developing children's health services, parents' expertise in their children's well-being should be paid more attention. This study enhances the knowledge of family nursing by describing Finnish parents' perceptions of cooperation with school nurses. The findings facilitate the understanding of cooperation in school health services.