Precepting nurse practitioner students in the graduate nurse education demonstration: A cross-sectional analysis of the preceptor experience

Abstract

Background: The Graduate Nurse Education (GNE) Demonstration seeks to increase the number of advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) in clinical practice. With the overall increase in APRN programs and, particularly, enrollment in nurse practitioner (NP) programs, there is growing competition among students to secure quality clinical precepting experiences. Purpose: This study describes NPs' and physicians' experiences with precepting APRN students within the Greater Philadelphia GNE Consortium. Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive survey of 1,021 NP and physician preceptors who provided clinical practicum experiences for at least one of the nine Greater Philadelphia GNE Consortium schools. Results: Differences between NP and physician precepting experiences regarding the importance of various factors in their decisions to precept were explored. Both NP and physician preceptors provide clinical practicum experiences to APRN students because they enjoy doing so. However, they differ regarding what they find important in their decisions to precept such as having protected time to precept and educational opportunities. Implications for practice: As universities work to recruit quality preceptors, they should consider tailoring their approach based on the preceptor's clinical role. In addition, schools located within the same region should consider streamlining administrative processes to form sustaining and productive clinical partnerships.

What Motivates Our Practice Colleagues to Precept the Next Generation?

“…The review included the Program Director Survey Regarding Preceptors, the Preceptor Incentive Survey, the Philadelphia GNE Consortium Preceptor Survey, and the American Association of Nurse Practitioners preceptor surveys from 2015 and 2016. 9,10,12,15 The team developed their Preceptor Engagement Survey with the goal of providing the NP faculty at the school with information on what preceptors perceive as the incentives and disincentives to precepting. Five current preceptors reviewed the survey questions and provided feedback to the team members before final distribution.…”

“…Items were included on the survey based on the literature about the reasons preceptors choose to precept students and discussion with established preceptors. 5,9,10,12,15…”

“…10 Solutions to the challenges of preceptor and site limitations are essential to grow NP programs. 11,12 Clinicians often appreciated the importance of the preceptor role, yet the ability to engage in that can be difficult. Reported barriers include time and productivity constraints, electronic medical record documentation issues, lack of physical space, and employer support.…”

Graduate students reported practices regarding the issue of informed consent and maintaining of data confidentiality in a developing country

“…Graduate education is a stage of learning that enables gaining of advanced and specialized knowledge and skills in a given discipline [ 1 , 2 ]. Among the advanced skills that students gain are in-depth learning, problem-solving, scientific writing, and oral presentation [ 3 ].…”

Understanding nurse preceptors’ experiences in a primary health care setting: A descriptive qualitative study

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Nurse preceptors provide clinical teaching and a supervisory role to a wide variety of individuals, from pre-registration nurses (Todd et al, 2019) to newly qualified nurses (La & Yun, 2019) across the health care system. There has been an increasing demand for primary health care services with the shift of focus from acute to primary care due to the increasing ageing population with high prevalence of chronic diseases (Miura et al, 2020).

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