School Nurses' Opinions About the Prevention of Tobacco Use

To further understand school nurses' tobacco policy beliefs and attitudes toward tobacco companies, a convenience sample of 53 school nurses completed questionnaires about antitobacco policies and attitudes toward tobacco companies. Overall, these nurses strongly agreed with tobacco policies such as banning youths from wearing clothing with a tobacco logo to school and fining restaurant owners who permit smoking. In addition, these nurses on average were negative toward tobacco companies. For example, they thought that tobacco companies and advertising leads to youth tobacco use. However, this group of school nurses thought that youths were basically neutral toward tobacco companies. Considering their professional experience with tobacco prevention at school, school nurses would be logical designers of tobacco prevention school interventions. An implication of these results1 is that school nurse education should include policy and activism components.