Meeting the need for nurse practitioner clinicals: A survey of practitioners

The increase in the number of nurse practitioner (NP) students requires increased clinical practice sites and prepared preceptors.

This study describes NPs' clinical experiences as a student and their current practices as an NP preceptor.

A descriptive study design used a 38-item web-based survey conducted in June and July 2021.

A total of 334 NPs practicing in Texas responded; most had been NPs for 10 or fewer years (58.2%) and in their positions less than 5 years (50.3%). A plurality of respondents was required to find their own clinical placements (46%). The most common challenge in obtaining clinical placements was finding preceptors (33%). Nurse practitioners reported excellent clinical experiences (39.3%) as a student and believed that they were generally well prepared for the NP role (38.9%) and to care for their specialty patient population (46.1%) upon graduation. Sixty percent of respondents reported not currently precepting, 37.6% had never been asked to precept, whereas 32.8% reported that employers restricted precepting. Family NPs were the least likely to precept.

Nurse practitioners report positive clinical experiences that prepare them for NP careers. Multiple opportunities exist to enlist additional NPs as preceptors for NP students.

There is capacity within the current NP workforce to meet the clinical educational needs of NP students. Future work should examine best practices to engage NPs who are not currently preceptors. As policies change NP education, research should examine the implications of the preparation for NP roles at the time of graduation, organizational outcomes, and quality of care.