Comparison of enviromental health at girl schools having or not having school nurses with an approach to improving the national education level

Children’s health has been one of the essential aims of the activities of lots of international organizations. The environmental investigation of health condition of schools and the impact of health nurses in elementary schools have been important issues that play a very important role in promoting educational objectives. It was a survey research. The sample included 200 Iranian girl elementary schools that were selected from 10,511 girl primary schools, using a random sampling method. 100 schools which had health nurses were considered as experimental group, while 100 other schools which did not have health nurses were considered as a control group. Data was gathered using direct observation and control list form which included 30 questions in 10 different situations. Then, they were analyzed using the Chi Square method. The results indicated that there is a significant difference between schools based on presence or absence of health nurses in 19 out of 30 variables of environmental health. So, the presence of health nurses in schools will lead in the improvement of schools’ environmental health.  Although providing such conditions is a multi-dimentional issue and different factors and variables in addition to presence or absence of health nurses could affect it, the overall investigation of these factors could provide clear criteria for designing children’s educational program and strategies for optimum use of resources (human resources, budget, time) to promote the level of awareness and health performance of children at schools.  As a strategy, we could insert the required health materials in elementary school textbooks, with health nurses responsible for teaching them, while using one health nurse in more than one school.