United States nurse practitioner students' attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs working with the uninsured

To reduce health disparities, nurses are expected to provide compassionate and high quality care to all patients regardless of socioeconomic and insurance status. In the United States (US) nurse practitioner (NP) educators need to expose students to clinical practice settings, such as free clinics, where the vulnerable populations like the non-documented immigrants and uninsured receive care. The purpose of this mixed method study was to provide an immersion experience for (NP) students at free clinics. Then researchers evaluated the impact of a clinical immersion experience on NP students' attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs about the uninsured and determine whether the clinical experience impacted their willingness to consider working with vulnerable populations in the future. Qualitative and quantitative data suggests students challenged their own beliefs and attitudes regarding the vulnerable populations, gained insight into care provided at these free clinics, and expressed their intent to volunteer at these settings. In the era of health care reform both nationally and internationally and the need to improve primary care access globally, educational initiatives are needed to expose NP students to economically vulnerable populations. Future research needs to replicate and extend the findings of this study, focusing on teaching-learning experiences for nurse practitioners and other advanced practice nursing students.