Nurse practitioners' degrees and associations with time use, functional autonomy, and job outcomes

Doctorate of Nursing Practice preparation is recommended for entry to nurse practitioner (NP) practice but there are few comparative studies, and their designs conflate educational pathways.

To investigate time use, functional autonomy, and job outcomes among NPs without a doctorate, NPs whose initial NP preparation and doctorate were separated by 2 or more years, and NPs whose NP preparation and doctorate were concurrent.

We selected all NPs from the 2018 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, except those whose doctorates focused on research. We controlled for confounding and applied sample weights to produce nationally representative results.

NPs' educational pathways are associated with distinct practice roles and, moving forward, policy should be informed by evidence that accounts for their differences.

Concurrent NPs had higher levels of functional autonomy compared with NPs without a doctorate, but patterns of time use were essentially the same. Separate doctoral education was associated with teaching and administration.