Date of Completion

2016

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Nursing

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

Marcia Bosek

Second Advisor

Barbara Rouleau

Keywords

Full practice authority, nurse practitioner, patient satisfaction

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the current understanding about the roles and abilities of nurse practitioners (NP) with full practice authority (FPA), and to evaluate the level of patient awareness and satisfaction related to having NP as their primary care provider (PCP). The study was a quantitative, non-experimental design including 76 participants ages 18 and older receiving care from Appletree Bay Primary Care in Burlington, VT. Participants completed anonymous surveys and identified themselves into one of four age groups (18-49, 50-64, 65-75, 76+). Over 97 percent of participants were aware that they were seeing an NP-PCP versus a medical doctor (MD). The questions addressing patient understanding revealed a statistically significant difference between age groups (p=0.05) when asked if they understood that the NP could perform a list of tasks without MD supervision. Participants reported high levels of satisfaction with averages ranging from 3.8-3.91 out of 4. This study showed a high level of support and satisfaction with FPA NP-PCPs at Appletree Bay, suggesting a need for continuing research on NPs with FPA to allow for findings to be generalized, supporting FPA NPs. With projected demands for PCPs to grow faster than MD workforce growth, continued research may help support endorsing NP-PCPs to be incorporated into workforce to help alleviate projected PCP shortages.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS