Exploring nurse practitioner practice in Australian rural primary health care settings: A scoping review

Abstract

Introduction:Australians in rural areas experience limited access to services and poorer health outcomes than residents of metropolitan areas. Nurse practitioners (NPs) were introduced in 2000 to reduce pressure on the health system, address workforce shortages and improve rural populations' access to health care services.Objective: This scoping review sought to identify, examine and synthesise research evidence of NP practice in Australian rural primary health care services to better understand how NPs are addressing service gaps in rural areas and to identify existing gaps in our knowledge.Design: Peer-reviewed and grey literature from July 2012 to June 2022 was accessed from seven electronic databases, grey literature and hand searching of reference lists and citations.

Nurse Practitioner Communities of Practice: An Exploratory Study

“…While clinical skill acquisition is primarily addressed within NP educational curricula many have found the practice environment "lonely" and "isolating" (Lowe, 2013;Tori 2017) during the transitional phase of moving to the NP role. Rossiter et al, (2023) noted, in more contemporary literature, that professional isolation and a lack of mentoring opportunities continue to contribute as barriers to successful transition. As such the opportunity to join a professional group for intra-professional nurturing and formal mentoring can prove to be an effective way of promoting professionalism and developing transformational leadership capability while influencing NP personal growth and development (Jackson, 2020;Tori & Morley, 2011) across the multifaceted domains which contribute to the non-clinical NP capability, including research skill acquisition (NMBA, 2021).…”