School based youth health nurses and a true health promotion approach: the Ottawa what?

The purpose of this research is to examine School Based Youth Health Nurses (SBYHN) experience of a true health promotion approach.

The School Based Youth Health Nurse Program is a state-wide school nursing initiative in Queensland, Australia. The programme employs more than 120 fulltime and fractional school nurses who provide health services in state high schools. The role incorporates two primary components: individual health consultations and health promotion strategies.

This study is a retrospective inquiry generated from a larger qualitative research project about the experience of school based youth health nursing. The original methodology was phenomenography. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 school nurses recruited through purposeful and snowball sampling. This study accesses a specific set of raw data about SBYHN experience of a true health promotion approach. The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) is used as a framework for deductive analysis.

The findings indicate school nurses have neither an adverse or affirmative conceptual experience of a true health promotion approach and an adverse operational experience of a true health promotion approach based on the action areas of the Ottawa Charter.

The findings of this research are important because they challenge the notion that school nurses are the most appropriate health professionals to undertake a true health promotion approach. If school nurses are the most appropriate health professionals to do a true health promotion approach, there are implications for recruitment and training and qualifications. If school nurses are not, who are the most appropriate health professionals to do school health promotion?

These findings can be applied to other models of school nursing in Australia which emphasises a true health promotion approach because they relate specifically to school nurses' experience of a true health promotion approach.