Congress Abstracts 2006

67

"LEARN, DON'T BURN": EDUCATION TO PROMOTE SUN-SAFETY BEHAVIORS IN ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS. Annette Lindal, RN, OCN^®, Via Christi Outreach Department, Wichita, KS.

Approximately 65-90% of melanomas are caused by ultraviolet (UV) radiation. More than one-half of a person's lifetime exposure to UV rays occurs during childhood and adolescence. Persons with a history of one or more blistering sunburns before the age of 18 are two times more likely to develop melanoma than those who do not have such exposure. The practice of sun-safe behaviors by school populations can be influenced by as little as 1 hour of skin cancer prevention education per year. The Cancer Outreach Coordinator designed a program alerting school personnel of the key role they play in the education and modeling of sun-protective behaviors.

The purpose of the "Learn, Don't Burn" program was to promote sun- safe behaviors in the school population of USD #259.

The professional education component of the project included a skin cancer prevention class for school nurses. Participants received toolkits for their schools including posters, bookmarks, pamphlets, resource curriculum, UV-indicator cards, and "Guidelines for School Programs to Prevent Skin Cancer" from the Center for Disease Control. Students were invited to participate in a poster contest illustrating a sun-safe behavior. Winning posters were displayed at the annual city-wide free skin cancer screening clinic. Poster designs were reproduced on tee shirts for each winner and his/her class.

A total of 13,762 children (28% of the USD #259 population) directly benefited from this program. Data was collected from a pre- and post-survey of the school nurses. Pre-program survey reported an average of 1.03 skin cancer prevention educational tools/RN used; post-program =3.52 tools/RN. Modeling of sun-protective behaviors: pre-program=1.29/RN; post program = 2.0/RN. Importance of skin cancer prevention education on a scale of 0-5 with 5 being very important: pre-program=3.67; post-program=4.7. Nurses cited important strengths of the program were organization, free materials, and curriculum.

The oncology nurse is a content expert in cancer prevention for the development of a sun-protective education module for school populations. The data suggests that by attending the education program school nurses increased their use of educational tools, increased their protective behaviors, and placed greater value on skin cancer prevention education.