Competences and skills of nurses in school health: a scoping review.

Objective: to map scientific evidence on the professional competences and skills of nurses who work in school health.

Method: Scoping review based on the manual from the protocol for writing Evidence Syntheses from the Joanna Briggs Institute and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses - extension for Scoping Reviews. The search was conducted in the following databases: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature; Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences; Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online; SCOPUS; Web of Science; Science Direct; Educational Resources Information Center; Embase; Google Scholar.

Results: Twenty studies were selected, none of them Brazilian. The scientific evidence was organized into four thematic axes: promotion, prevention, assistance, and health education. There was a shortcoming as the role of nurses in schools was not well understood, with routines and regulations that vary according to the sociocultural aspects of each territory. The most mentioned skills were communication, management and leadership.

Conclusion: The nursing competences and skills mapped proved to be internationally diverse, however, studies are recommended that investigate the practices of nurses working in the context of Brazilian student health public policies and a better delimitation of the concept of school nursing.