Cost documentation of school nursing follow-up services

The cost of nursing services was documented as part of a grant to study the effect of school nursing follow-up on the outcome of dental screening. Eleven nurses participated in the study with experimental (n = 287) groups of fifth and sixth grade students from a large West Coast school district who were screened for caries. Stratifiers for the randomized group assignment were school, cavity severity, gender, ethnicity, and insurance coverage. A positive difference occurred for the 11 nurses (p = 0.0046). The cost of telephone follow-up averaged $8.92 for 26.69 minutes and compared favorably with a California state allowance of $11 for a half-hour of similar service. The study offers a beginning analytical formulation for examining field services in school and community health nursing using a naturalistic experimental design.