Potential Life-Threatening Events in Schools Involving Rescue Inhalers, Epinephrine Autoinjectors, and Glucagon Delivery Devices: Reports From School Nurses

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to use the reports of school nurses to facilitate the understanding of how schools experience and manage asthmatic, anaphylactic, and diabetic emergencies by quantitative and qualitative analysis of online surveys. E-mails with a link to SurveyMonkey® were sent to all U.S. members of the National Association of School Nurses (13,695). Subjects were asked to describe their self-reported knowledge, opinions, practices, and experiences with such emergencies and the devices used to manage them. Regarding the frequency of emergencies in a given school year, the medians were 8 for asthma, 0 for anaphylaxis, and 10 for hypoglycemia. Twenty-two, five, and one subjects, respectively, reported that events like these resulted in deaths during their careers as school nurses. These diseases create substantial potential for emergencies in schools, and the schools represented by these nurses appear to be somewhat, but not ideally, equipped to handle such crises.