Characteristics of emergency nurse practitioner professional identity: A multicenter qualitative study

The first emergency nurse practitioners have been working in France for two years now. Their arrival may raise questions, but they are seen as a potential solution to the crisis of overcrowding in emergency department. As a new profession in the emergency department, it is crucial to study the characteristics of the professional identity in order to provide the keys to understanding their place and the role they can play within systems of care.

We wanted to explore the perceived characteristics of the emergency nurse practitioners by the physicians, nurses, health care managers, and emergency nurse practitioners themselves.

This is a multicenter qualitative study. 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted in 5 distinct hospitals from April to June 2024. Participants included nurses, emergency nurse practitioners, physicians, and healthcare managers. Data were analyzed using thematic coding.

Four themes emerged concerning the characteristics of emergency nurses practitioners professional identity: A combination of skills in a variety of fields (1), a pivotal professional, expert in the care pathway, at the interface with other emergency professions (2), a dual identity anchor: nurse and emergency professional, (3) and a position that is still in its nascent stages, plagued by uncertainty and obstacles (4).

This study revealed the characteristics of the professional nursing identity. It emerges that professionals see the emergency nurse practitioners as an intermediary player in the care response and as an expert in the care pathway.