Nursing research in a school setting.

As more nurses are expanding their role and moving beyond traditional staff nursing, it is becoming increasingly common to find nurses conducting research. The utilization of schools as research sites is on the rise. Life events in families, such as divorce, unemployment, and geographic relocation, predispose school-aged children to high levels of stress, and nurse researchers are in a position to examine students' responses to these stressors. The purpose of this article is to discuss four issues inherent to research in schools, and to share some strategies which were effective. The issues include recruitment of subjects, informed consent, interviewing subjects, and coping with the unpredictable.