Primary School Parents’ Perceptions of School Nurse’s Role and Health Services in Bacninh City, Vietnam

Abstract

The school nurse is the key person in school health services who contributes to appraise, protect and promote student health. This study aimed to determine the perceptions of primary school parents/ guardians toward school nurse roles and school health services and examined the level of parents’/guardians’ agreement to support to school health services. There were 580 parents randomly selected from 2 primary schools of BacNinh city, one had school nurse (SN) and the other had school health staff (SHS) responding completely the self administrator questionnaires developed for the study. Chi square test was used to compare the knowledge of parents/guardians about school health programs and setting school nurse and health clinic in their children school. The parents in school having school nurse knew about school health programs higher than in school having school health staff (p < 0.001). More than 90% of parents/ guardians thought that it is needed of school health clinic (95.9%) and of school nurse working full-time (89.8%). Most of parents agreed support to school health services (99.3%) and willed to pay for school health services (97.4%). Most of parents/ guardians thought that the school where their children studying should have a school nurse and a health clinic to take care of student’s health at school. They also agreed to support and were willing to pay from 20,000 to 40,000 VND for school health services.