Disorders of Attention deficit and hyperactivity (ADHD), anxiety and self-harm. These are the mental health pathologies that people see the most every day. school nurses in the classrooms of the Region of Murcia, who witness a constant increase in cases. The role of these professionals is essential to detect these situations in time, raise the alarm and refer the student to the service or specialist they need, as stated in the study ‘Diagnosis of mental health in the classrooms’, prepared by the IOInvestigación institute and presented by the sectoral unions SATSE (nursing) and ANPE (teachers).
With it an attempt has been made to analyze through 6,221 surveysin which they have participated school nurses, teachers and parents in the Region of Murciathe mental health problems suffered by students and teaching staff.
When asked, 93.3% of teachers claim that there is an increase in mental health problems. While 86.1% of school nurses affirm that they have a student with a diagnosis related to mental health. And 50.79% of families say they know a student with these types of problems.
Given this situation, practically all teachers consider It is necessary for a health professional to treat both physical and mental health on a regular basis in the educational center.
The two unions agree on the need for all educational centers to have at least one school nurse who can carry out prevention, detection and monitoring tasks of mental health problems in the school environment. Thus, both the president of SATSE, Laura Villaseñor, and the president of ANPE, Francisco Venzalá, insist that childhood and adolescence are decisive stages in the development and training of people, and that there are many studies that warn of the increasing incidence of mental health problems among children and young people.
In the Region of Murcia, school nursing was planned with the objective that each educational center would have an assigned school nurse, although finally the model changed and these professionals are assigned to a health center and serve all educational centers in their area. .
According to the figures offered by the Ministry of Health, the SMS has school nursing assigned in 85 health centers, who provide coverage to the schools and institutes in their basic health area. For this it has 90 professionals, to which are added the 6 who depend on the Ministry of Education.
Detection of risk factors
Specifically, the school nurse plays an important role in the prevention of mental health problems through the identification of risk factors related to the onset of harmful behaviors, such as alcohol, tobacco, or drug useand situations such as bullying, low self-esteem or socialization problems.
It also carries out detection work, and alerts both the teaching and guidance team and the health team to refer cases to the corresponding professional (mental health nurse, psychologist or other specialist).
Alert for the high consumption of anxiolytics among Murcian adolescents
In the event that there is a diagnosis of psychiatric pathology, the school nurse is responsible for the administration and monitoring of the pharmacological treatment, observing and recording the therapeutic and adverse effects that the medication has on the child or adolescent.
Pathologies
The main mental health pathologies mentioned by the school nurses consulted are ADHD, anxiety, and self-harm and self-harm attempts. Regarding this last problem, 62.7% affirm that there has been some case of attempted suicide among their students.
Other notable pathologies are autism spectrum disorders; behavioral disorders; the Eating disorder; the depression; destructive or challenging behaviors; the addictions and psychosis.
Faculty
The survey is also interested in the mental health of teachers. According to the professionals surveyed, the factors that most influence this being affected are excess bureaucracy; the excess of students; the problems of coexistence in the classrooms; the scarcity of resources; the lack of social dignity; excess responsibility and excessive teaching hours.
Likewise, 90.9% indicate that the educational Administration does not contemplate resources or support programs for the mental health of teachers in the workplace.
María Jesús Pérez, school nurse in Cartagena: “Students need someone to listen to them”
“The role of the school nurse is not to heal a wound if a child falls at school, we are much more.” In this way, María Jesús Pérez, a school nurse in Cartagena and who is in charge of nearly 3,000 school students, defends the work of her. five primary schools and two IES of Health Area II.
This professional recognizes that by running so many centers at the same time she has not been able to go in depth and work as she would like on the needs of Primary children, but in Secondary she has launched in the two institutes that she has a space where she goes once a year. the week and in which he answers students’ queries. «This young consultation is a very important space because they share what worries them. Girls have come to me with eating disorders and with self harm marks», he explains while regretting that attention is limited to one day a week.
«It would be very important for each center to have a school nurse on a daily basis. to serve this child population,” says María Jesús Pérez.
Regarding their work, they indicate that they offer care and train teachers to deal with school alert cases in the event of an emergency, which include four pathologies: severe allergies, diabetes, epileptic seizures and heart disease. But they also teach health education, eating habits and play a great role in prevention, such as early prevention of alcohol, tobacco or drug consumption.
Pérez states that «The school nurse is like a link between several professionalssince we are in contact with the IES guidance service in case we detect that a student brings us a problem that requires specific attention from Primary Care or Mental Health.
The specialist warns that mental health pathologies are very worrying and «Nursing can play a great role Because, although we are not psychologists, we can detect the problem and transfer the student to other specialists. “Students need someone to listen to them to bring out things that worry them and that they do not share with the family and in this case the school nurse is a neutral figure in whom they usually trust.”
Furthermore, he points out that in the conversations and workshops held with them, cases of abuse or mistreatment usually come to light, since they take the step of telling about it.
For this reason, he believes that it would be very important to be able to work at the center with them on a daily basis, both to assist them in any circumstance and in the field of research and teaching, with health education.