An integrative review of nurse practitioner practice and its relationship to the core competencies

Competency based education (CBE) has been suggested for nurse practitioner (NP) education reform. For this to occur, competencies should reflect the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that NPs need for independent practice.

This integrative review examined the general practice activities of NPs across all population foci to determine the extent to which these activities are reflected in current NP competencies.

Using the Whittemore and Knafl (2005) integrative review method, 17 studies that focused on NP practice between 2008 and 2018 were retrieved from three electronic databases. These studies were evaluated, analyzed and synthesized for themes. Afterwards the themes were compared with seven sets of current NP core competencies.

The themes for NP practice activities were direct and indirect patient care activities with a majority of NP time spent performing direct patient care activities. However, only 14% of the NP core competencies reflected these direct care activities.

In order to successfully implement CBE, a need exists for the NP core competencies to reflect current NP practice.