O3259: Associations of Burnout, Stress, and Work Satisfaction Among School Nurses

Background: School nurses (SNs) are the healthcare providers charged with advancing student well-being and academic achievement. They accomplish this through activities and services for students, families, and staff. Their new function as a pandemic expert ensures the health and safety of the students and school community, placing SNs in a difficult position and possibly leading to burnout or decisions to leave the profession. The overall purpose of this study was to describe the services school nurses delivered during the pandemic, explore challenges school nurses face, and determine factors associated with school nurse burnout.

Methods: Using mixed-methods with cross-sectional survey data collected December 2022, open-ended structured survey questions, content analysis, Spearman’s correlation, and logistic regression, this study aims to explore how Southern California school nurses mitigated the impact of COVID-19 on the health and academic challenges of students, families, school staff, and their communities, and factors associated with school nurse burnout.

Results: SNs (N=124) delivered many services including virtual office hours, classes dealing with stress, disseminating updates, and developing guidelines. SNs faced challenges related to workload, acuity, and students/family issues. Although most school nurses reported job satisfaction (72%), burnout levels were high (39%). Lower work satisfaction tended to increase feelings of burnout (p <.0001), and lower levels of stress reported correlated with lower levels of burnout (p <.0001).

Conclusion: To develop meaningful interventions to support school nurses, additional research is needed to study potential associations between work conditions and burnout.