Scholarly publication practices of Doctor of Nursing Practice-prepared nurses

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) graduates are expected to contribute to nursing knowledge through empirically based studies testing the effectiveness of practice approaches that ultimately benefit patients and health care systems. This article describes publication practices of DNP graduates in the scholarly literature. Published studies (2005 to 2012) with at least one author with a DNP degree were identified. The search yielded 300 articles in 59 journals; 175 met the inclusion criteria and were included in this study. A codebook, consisting of 15 major categories, was used to extract relevant information. Original clinical investigations were the most frequent, followed by practice-focused patient and provider studies. The number of studies published in peer-reviewed journals with DNP-prepared authors increased over time. We recommend greater integration of translational science models into DNP curricula to achieve the goal of publishing scholarly products that use evidence to improve either practice or patient outcomes.