Tips for giving Flu Mist

[starintn]

I'm going to participate in giving the Flu Mist to a county school system this fall/winter. Can anyone provide any tips for giving the flu mist? I don't have a lot of experience working with kids and figured this would be a good chance to gain that experience. I'll be working with teams of nurses who have done this before but I'd like to be a little more prepared before the clinics start. Since we're doing so many, I'd like to have a few tips on giving the flu mist as efficiently as possible well as handling difficult kids. I've worked school physicals before and the worst thing that happened there was a little boy who did not want to have his blood pressure taken using a pink cuff. I just passed him on to someone with another color cuff. Easy enough! Thanks for any help,

Star

[kristine_bean, RN]

Tell the kids its similar to getting a little bit of water in their nose. They shouldn't blow their nose for 30-60 min after the immunization is administered. And according to CDC they should tip their head back while your hand supports them behind the neck. While they breathe normal spray one half into one nostril (without removing the divider before administering or it will all go in one nostril). Remove the divider and administer the rest in the other nostril. Hope this was helpful. And be sure to tell them its much nicer than a shot! They love that :)