Determining nurse practitioner core competencies using a Delphi approach

Competency-based education (CBE) has been recommended for nurse practitioner (NP) education. To implement CBE, existing NP core competencies need to be reduced in number and refined.

This study refined and reduced redundancy in the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) NP core competencies through the consensus of experts in NP practice. This study used the current NP Core Competencies (NONPF, 2017), the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (AACN, 2006), and the Common Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Doctoral-Level Competencies (AACN, 2017a) because these documents are the competencies-accredited NP programs commonly used in curriculum development. The primary aim of this study was to refine and reduce redundancy of these competencies; a secondary aim was to ensure that the final competencies were clear and measurable.

A Delphi approach was used to reach consensus among an expert panel who reviewed the core competencies via an online questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate median and interquartile ranges; content analysis was conducted with qualitative data.

Consensus was reached after 3 rounds and resulted in 49 final core competencies.

This study provides the NP community with a manageable list of relevant, clear, and measurable competencies that faculty members can use to implement CBE in their programs.