Perceptions of nurse practitioners by emergency department doctors in Australia

The Australian Medical Association is strongly opposed to the nurse practitioner (NP) role with concerns that NPs may become doctor substitutes without the requisite training and education that the medical role demands. Despite this, NPs have been heralded by some as a potential solution to the access block, workforce shortage and increased demand affecting emergency departments (EDs).

The purpose of this study was to determine the perception of NPs by medical staff working in Australian EDs.

Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with closed and open-ended questions. Participants were drawn from a representative stratified sample of two city, two metropolitan and two provincial hospitals of each State/Territory.

A total of 95 doctors from 35 EDs participated in this study including 36 Departmental Directors; 36% of participating Directors indicated having an NP on staff. Doctors were strongly opposed to the statement that NPs could replace either nurses or other prevocational doctors; 71 interviewees commented on the role of NPs in the ED. Thematic analyses revealed polarised views held by doctors. Eight major themes were identified, the most common being that there is a lack of clarity of the NP role definition, their scope of practice and differentiation from the medical role.

Although ED NPs represent a highly skilled professional group their role is poorly understood by ED doctors. Opposition to the NP role is a significant barrier to the introduction of great numbers of ED NPs as a strategy to overcome the medical workforce shortage.

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12245-010-0214-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.