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Neonatal nurse practitioners: identity as advanced practice nurses
Objective:
To define how neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) perceive their identity as advanced practice nurses.
Design:
Non-experimental descriptive and correlational survey.
Setting:
Nationwide random sample drawn from NNPs certified by the National Certification Corporation.
Participants:
Two hundred fifty-eight neonatal nurse practitioners practicing in neonatal intensive-care units across the United States.
Main Outcome Measures:
Neonatal Nurse Practitioners indicated on a visual analogue scale at which point their philosophy of practice fell on a continuum from nursing to medicine and specified on a 5-point bipolar Likert scale how various role socialization factors influenced their identity.
Results:
The NNPs predominantly were certificate-prepared and aligned themselves with a medical philosophy. Those NNPs who were master's-prepared (p < .01), precepted by another NNP (p < .05), espoused a philosophy of nursing (p < .001), belonged to a professional nursing organization (p < .05), and had an NNP role model (p < .001) were more likely to have a strong nursing identity (95% confidence interval).
Conclusions:
The issues of role differentiation, socialization, and identity of advanced practice nurses in tertiary care need further exploration. These data support the American Nurses' Association mandate of graduate nursing education for advanced nurse practitioners.