Vaccine Education As A Service-Learning Project
By Audrey Robinson
In the 2021 fall semester at Clemson University in South Carolina , 15 clinical groups , including senior nursing students in community health nursing at Clemson University in South Carolina , completed service-learning projects . Each clinical group partnered with a community organization or agency to help the population that they serve , significantly impacting the local communities . The various projects included sexual assault and abuse prevention , health screenings , elementary school education on safety , and promotion of mental health . Different age groups , socioeconomic levels , and cultural groups benefited from the projects .
Many nursing schools include service learning in their curriculum . Research has shown the impact of a service-learning based curriculum on student outcomes . For example , Celio , Durlak , and Dymnicki ( 2011 ) reported that students who participated in service-learning projects have positive attitudes toward self , school and learning , social skills , academic achievement , and civic engagement . Additionally , Kohlbry ( 2016 ) found that a service-learning-based curriculum increased nursing students ’ cultural competency , leading to a decreased gap between nurses and patient-centered care . Being a nurse is about serving individual patients but is also about serving the community as a whole . To provide culturally competent , patient-centered care , nurses must be active in the community to understand where their patients live , what needs they have , and what nurses can do to help nurture patients ’ needs .
My clinical section partnered with Prisma Children ’ s Clinic in Greenville , SC to provide education on vaccines to the population that the clinic serves . The nursing process was used for this project — that is , assessment , diagnosis , planning , implementation , and evaluation .
Assessment phase . The assessment phase was divided into two parts — that is , assessment of the community and assessment of the population . During this phase , research was done on demographic characteristics , health care systems , strengths and needs , geographic identifiers , and characteristics of the people in Greenville County , SC . We also assessed the age range , cultural issues , health and developmental needs , and statistics of the population the Prisma Children ’ s Clinic serves .
Diagnosis phase . We then moved into the diagnosis phase where we prioritized a list of needs for our population and chose the needs that we would focus our project on — that is , childhood vaccine information and education for parents . Other needs for the population included mental health education and resources , general health education , and education on drug and alcohol use and abuse .
Through interviewing various community members and researching statistics about Greenville , we found that the common denominator between different aspects of the community was that they needed simple , reader-friendly information about childhood vaccinations . Through research , we found that the rates of unvaccinated students in Greenville County have more than doubled since 2014 and that number is growing each year . Greenville County is ranked second in the state of South Carolina for the number of unvaccinated students ; on average , one in five students is unvaccinated ( Moore , 2018 ). Is this due to people ’ s misconceptions about vaccines ? Is this due to the growing trend of people being more careful about what they put in their bodies ? Is this due to herd immunity being so great that people do not see these preventable diseases anymore and they therefore are not afraid of them ? These are the questions that my group was eager to answer . Furthermore , the COVID-19 pandemic and creation of the COVID-19 vaccine has generated mixed media messages , protests over mandates and may be
16 NSNA IMPRINT • FEBRUARY / MARCH 2022 • www . nsna . org