Child Maltreatment: Optimizing Recognition and Reporting by School Nurses.

School nurses perform a crucial role in the prevention, identification, intervention, and reporting of child maltreatment. The purpose of this article is to share the highlights of a research project conducted to (a) examine the effectiveness of an educational intervention program in increasing the knowledge, confidence, and self-efficacy in school nurses regarding children at risk of maltreatment; and (b) discover issues surrounding the comfort level engaging with children, communicating with teachers and other personnel, and ethical issues. The study consisted of two phases.

A Case of Pertussis: What Emergency Health Care Providers Need to Know.

Pertussis is a highly contagious acute respiratory illness. Prior to the availability of the whole-cell pertussis vaccine in the late 1940s, pertussis was one of the most common infectious diseases of childhood in the United States and a major cause of infant morbidity and mortality. Although pertussis vaccination has resulted in a substantial reduction in the disease, the incidence has been steadily increasing since the 1990s.