Are Australian Cancer and Palliative Care Nurses Ready to Prescribe Medicines? A National Survey
Open access copy at publisher website
Description
<p>Objectives: Registered nurse prescribing has been put forth, for decades, as an innovative approach to meet growing healthcare needs, particularly in areas of care where medications are essential and highly controlled such as for patients requiring cancer and palliative care. However, the adoption of innovative health delivery models requires acceptance by key stakeholders. This study explores cancer and palliative care nurses’ attitudes toward nurse prescribing and their perceptions about educational requirements for a nurse prescriber. Data Sources: A cross-sectional survey was distributed to Australian nurses between March and July 2021. Data were collected using the Advancing Implementation of Nurse Prescribing in Australia online survey. Pearson χ<sup>2</sup> tests were used to examine associations between nurses in cancer care, palliative care, and all other specialties on demographics, attitudes to nurse prescribing, and educational perspectives to become prescribers. Of the 4,424 nurses who participated in the survey, 161 nurses identified they worked in cancer care and 109 in palliative care settings. Conclusion: Although nurses have a common set of core capabilities, their work contexts and their professional experiences shape their attitudes toward practice. Nurses in cancer care were significantly less certain than nurses in palliative care [χ<sup>2</sup>(2) = 6.68, P = .04], and nurses from all other specialties [χ<sup>2</sup>(2) =13.87, P = <.01] of the benefits of nurse prescribing (ie, nurse prescribing would decrease health care system costs, reduce patient risk). Nurses in cancer care were more certain that successfully implementing nurse prescribing requires strong support from their medical and pharmacy colleagues. In addition, nurses working in cancer and palliative care agreed that improving patient care was their primary motivator for becoming a prescriber. Implications for Nursing Practice: Open to expanding their role and responsibilities, nurses in cancer and palliative care settings reported that successfully adopting nurse prescribing must be supported by their other healthcare colleagues within the same environment, which demands strong interprofessional collaborative efforts.</p>
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
| ID Code: | 246832 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item Type: | Contribution to Journal (Journal Article) | ||||||
| Refereed: | Yes | ||||||
| ORCID iD: |
|
||||||
| Measurements or Duration: | 8 pages | ||||||
| Keywords: | Cancer care, National survey, Nonmedical prescribing, Nurse prescribing, Palliative care | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.soncn.2023.151578 | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0749-2081 | ||||||
| Pure ID: | 163429650 | ||||||
| Divisions: | Current > Research Centres > Centre for Healthcare Transformation Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Faculty of Health Current > Schools > School of Nursing |
||||||
| Copyright Owner: | 2024 The Authors | ||||||
| Copyright Statement: | This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the document is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to qut.copyright@qut.edu.au | ||||||
| Deposited On: | 05 Mar 2024 06:08 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 06 Aug 2024 01:40 |
Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX
Repository Staff Only: item control page
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)