School Nurses' Knowledge, Educational Needs and Providing Education about Internet Addiction

보건교사의 인터넷 중독에 대한 지식, 교육요구 및 개입실태

Purpose: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive survey to identify school nurses' knowledge, educational needs and providing education about Internet addiction. Method: A total of 198 school nurses working in schools located in Gyunggi Province and the cities of Ulsan, Daegu, and Pohang participated in the study A self-report scale was used to collect data. It included 53 items measuring school nurses' knowledge, their educational needs and performing related to Internet addiction. Results: The mean score for knowledge of Internet addiction was 13.12 (SD=3.13), indicating a moderate level of knowledge. The highest frequency, $24.7\%$ of the school nurses agreed that the computer teacher is the appropriate person to do educate on Internet addiction, followed by the school nurse with another teacher ($24.2\%$). Only $40.4\%$ of the nurses had any experience in providing students with education about Internet addiction. The main reason for not providing education about Internet addiction was that there was no time ($57.6\%$). Education was reported most frequently as being provided by the class teacher ($36.3\%$), followed by school nurse ($31.3\%$). Conclusions: It is important to expand the role of school nurses in preventing and responding to Internet addiction and to develop training programs designed to further develop their abilities in teaching and counseling.