The occupational profile and associated training needs of the nurse prescriber: an empirical study of family planning nurses

Rationale, aims and objectives. The issue of nurse prescribing is highly to pical, with various United Kingdom Government directives recommending this extension to the nursing role. However, despite an imperative to provide 23 000 nurse prescribers by March 2001 and to expand this function to half th e nursing workforce by 2004, there is as yet no agreement as to the occupat ional profile of the nurse prescriber, nor the level and content of any pre -requisite educational programme. This study was an attempt to address thes e unresolved aspects with family planning nurses. Method. A psychometrically valid and reliable training needs analysis instr ument was distributed to 1142 family planning nurses, of which 388 were ret urned. This instrument required the respondents to assess 40 core clinical tasks according to three criteria: how critical each task was both to their current role as family planning nurses and to the role of the family plann ing nurse prescriber, and how well each was performed. Comparisons of the r atings provided an indicative profile of the role of the family planning nu rse prescriber and a prioritized list of training needs to achieve this sta tus. Results. Generally, and unsurprisingly, the nurse prescribing role was defi ned primarily in terms of prescribing functions, although advanced professi onal issues, communication, teamwork and business/administration were also deemed to be salient. Research was not identified as being important. Howev er, with regard to the top 15 training needs, seven research tasks were rec orded, with the remainder including advanced clinical activities, applied p harmacology, administration and technical activities. Conclusion. This study offers a role definition of the nurse prescriber in family planning, and an indicative curriculum for cognate educational progr ammes.