Nurse practitioners and the problem of discounting

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are key primary care providers in health care ref orm. The purpose of this paper is to discuss discounting, a social problem for NPs discovered in this grounded theory study. Discounting refers to beh aviours directed towards NPs that they perceived as degrading, Data collect ion included open-ended, in-depth interviews on the nature of NP practice w ith 23 NPs, and 10 key members representing the Florida State Board of Nurs ing, Florida Nurses Association, American Nurses Association, and National Council of State Boards of Nursing. Excerpts that illuminated discounting w ere obtained from field notes about organizational documents, state legisla tive committee hearings, and professional NP association meetings. Data ana lysis using the grounded theory method revealed that NPs in this study stru ggled to establish their roles from a position of marginality in a context of conflict and negativity. NPs were subjected to social psychological and social structural discounting, This research serves to raise the consciousn ess of NPs with the hope that such awareness will facilitate personal and g roup action to combat discounting in their daily work and at local, state a nd national levels.