Practicum in Community Health Nursing (NUR 517)

Final Examination
1. Discuss the effects of conducting early periodic screening by community health nurses

on school-aged children (5 marks).

Introduction

Periodic screening refers to the process of checking the health of children under the age of 21

years at periodic and appropriate age intervals. Early periodic screening entails the physical,

dental, hearing, vision, mental, and other vital screening tests conducted to identify potential

health problems (Centers for & Medicaid, 2021).

Early periodic screening effects

Early periodic screening has positive effects associated with timely recognition of a child’s

learning problems which might indicate the presence of learning disorders and provide the

needed attention. In school-aged, neuroplasticity enables them to adapt to different learning

aspects because their brains are changing and developing. The brain networks of school-aged

children are still forming and therefore early interventions have great positive impacts on them

when still young. Early periodic screening, therefore, results in school-aged children getting

early and extra help as soon as possible and helping them from falling behind others (Quarles,

2021).

Early screening helps to establish ways of assisting children who are struggling both

behaviorally and academically in early school days to be able to fit into society later in life. The

community nurse and the educators can address the needs of these students and put them on a

path toward successful promotion from one grade to another, up to getting employment after

college graduation (Rey-Casserly et al., 2019).

2. Discuss the role of the school nurse (5 marks).

3. Discuss measures used to minimize the spread of a common but preventable health

concern among school-aged children (5 marks)

4. Case Study

“The school nurse has just completed the height-and-weight assessment of the students in the

4th-grade class. When tracking these data, she recognized that 60% of the students were normal

body weight; however, 25% were overweight and 15% were obese. She has recognized that she

needs to implement a nutrition and physical activity program for this population.”

a. What resources does the school nurse have to identify best practice principles that will

guide this work of the school nurse? (5 marks)

b. What strategies might the school nurse recommend to the school administration to

address the problem of childhood obesity? (10 marks).

c. How can the school nurse evaluate whether the school-based programs are working?

(10 marks)
 References

Centers for, M., & Medicaid, S. (2021). Early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment.
Medicaid. gov.

Quarles, C. (2021). Product of Society: School-Aged Children, ADHD, and Mental Health
Support in a Low-Income Rural Community.

Rey-Casserly, C., McGuinn, L., Lavin, A., LaMonte Askew, G., Baum, R., Berger-Jenkins, E.,
Gambon, T. B., Nasir, A. A., Wissow, L. S., & Weitzman, C. C. (2019). School-aged
children who are not progressing academically: considerations for pediatricians.
Pediatrics, 144(4).