Nurse practitioner recall of Men's health content in nurse practitioner program curricula

This study explored nurse practitioner (NP) recall relative to men's urology/sexual/reproductive health content in NP educational programs, which often require separate women's health content.

This study explored practicing NPs' recall of (1) curricula content relative to men's urology/sexual/reproductive health topics and (2) specific physical examination and laboratory interpretation content relative to men's urology, sexual, and reproductive health topics.

This exploratory study used a cross-sectional, descriptive design. A convenience sample of NPs working with adult male patients were recruited among attendees of the 2023 American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) National Conference. Respondents completed a one-time, anonymous, online survey assessing recall of the amount of time dedicated to learning about various men's urologic/sexual/reproductive health issues.

Ninety NPs completed the survey, averaging 9.9 ± 6.9 years in practice. 84% of participants felt that their NP program offered more content focused on women's health care needs compared with men's health content. Using a 0 (not prepared) to 10 (thoroughly prepared) Likert scale for a response to "How well do you feel your NP program prepared you to manage the specific health care needs of," the average was 4.1 for men and 6.9 for women.

This is the first project to quantify men's health topics as part of the NP curriculum, creating groundwork for discussion of apparent disparity in gender-specific curricula content and a potential gap in NP knowledge relative to men's urologic/sexual/reproductive health issues.

These results suggest a need for a formalized men's health curriculum to complement the women's health curriculum present in most NP programs.