A survey of nurses who practice in infertility settings

A nonrandom convenience sample was used to obtain information about the educational level, clinical activities, knowledge base, and skills of nurses involved with in vitro fertilization.

Three hundred thirty-six returned surveys.

The Wilcox rank sum test compared nurses in the private practice setting with those in hospital-based services. No differences were found with regard to educational level or perceived level of proficiency with regard to the practice setting or geographic location in the United States. Seventy-three percent of the respondents indicated their primary role was in direct patient care; 31% stated they had been active in artificial reproductive nursing less than 5 years. Graduate level education was not correlated with perceived level of expertise but did correlate with length of clinical experience in assisted reproductive nursing and with certification.

Assisted reproductive nursing currently does not meet the standards for classification as an advanced practice nursing group. Action to further the area of reproductive nursing to a specialty in nursing or an advanced practice level is worth consideration for this highly specialized and unique group of nurses.