[The impact of district nurses in screening visual impairments]

The children's physical and mental health is determinative for the whole society. Parents, teachers, district nurses, and doctors share the duty to ensure their uninterrupted visual development. District nurses compose key elements in connecting families and health care providers, since they have the chance to detect any visual anomalies, and to refer the children to a pediatrician, ophthalmologist, or a neurologist. Their team work yields advantages to the whole community as beyond preserving good vision, children get a real chance of right physical and mental development.

Our aim was to recollect district nurses' areas of activity and to collect data about their present status in visual screening programs. Furthermore, to assess their screening methods and circumstances, and to reshape their continuous learning programs linked to the universities.

Questionnaires were sent online anonymously to district nurses in practice, in order to collect data referring to their focuses during the visual screening methods. Administration of online parental tutorials was assessed, and measures of professional support in nurses' education was debated.

Visual screening among infants looks for potential strabismus, and among school-age children looks for potential refractive errors. Vision tests and stereo tests are usually available as screening tools, but pen lights are underused. Only a few nurses suggest online tutorials to enhance patient education, but nurses are highly motivated in postgraduate courses about vision screening.

Our results reflect good adherence to the screening protocols but there is some uncertainty in some fields. In harmony with the results, adequate technical and educational support and specific training were compiled for postgraduate district nurses. Coaching and training in visual screening (in the form of seminars or e-learning) should be available in spring 2023. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(3): 88-95.