Associate Nursing Professor Receives Grant

Dr. Deby Tyndall, an associate professor in the School of Nursing, recently received a grant from the National Association of School Nurses to conduct a national study examining the role of school nurses in youth suicide prevention. In her previous research in eastern North Carolina, she found that school nurses were excluded from school-based suicide prevention efforts. This grant will support survey distribution to school nurses across the country to examine school and district policies and practices that facilitate or hinder the role and reach of school nurses. “Our long-term goal is to promote inclusivity of school nurses in school-based suicide prevention programs in an effort to support mental health equity among school-aged youth,” she said.

Tyndall indicates that youth suicide rates have risen over the past decade, and that North Carolina rates are mimicking this national trend. “The pandemic has been especially hard on our youth. When these students came back to school after lockdown, the school nurses could hardly keep up with the distress that students were under. It was overwhelming,” she said.

Tyndall is also working with local communities to address the lack of suicide risk protocols and assessment tools available to school nurses. She has partnered Nash and Craven counties to implement a school nurse protocol. “We found from our research over the past couple of years that school nurses are pivotal. They are often the first point of contact for students who may show up in the school nurse’s office with somatic complaints or perhaps a visit to the school nurse is less threatening than maybe a counselor or social worker. One school nurse told us, ‘We are not mental health experts. It's a scary place to be put in a position where you're asking kids if they are thinking about hurting themselves.’” she says.

This community-engaged project will focus on advancing school nursing practice in rural communities where suicide rates are higher, especially within communities of marginalized youth. “Given our demographics in North Carolina and that our state is rural, we definitely want to learn more about the barriers and the facilitators for the school nurses in the state,” she explains. This project will help Tyndall’s team link school nurse outcome data with student safety outcomes, offering a model for other N.C. school districts.