Nebraska School Nurses Identify Emotional Maltreatment of School-Age Children: A Replication of an Ohio Study

Purpose. To determine how often school nurses identify emotional maltreatment using validated vignettes. DESIGN. Survey, with 16 behavior vignettes, mailed to 550 Nebraska school nurses. Four forms represented nonwhite and white, male and female children. Demographic questionnaire included. SETTING. Survey mailed with regular spring school nurses' newsletter. PARTICIPANTS. One hundred twenty‐one school nurses completed and returned surveys. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES. Each vignette was an example of emotional abuse; subjects indicated “refer” or “not refer” decisions about the vignette. All items were positive for emotional abuse. RESULTS. Sixty‐four of 121 (53%) respondents correctly identified 13 or more vignettes as referable for emotional maltreatment. No influence of child gender and race on reporting decision. No nurse characteristics correlated with referral rates. CONCLUSIONS. None of the variables studied significantly influenced school nurses' identification of emotional abuse. Further research is needed to ascertain correlation between text vignettes and reporting, and to identify interventions to increase the rate of identifying emotional abuse.