Advanced Practice Nursing Role Development of Advanced Adult Nursing Graduates, Christian University of Thailand

Abstract

          The Graduate School of Christian University of Thailand has been approved to offer Teaching in Master of Nursing Science Program in Advanced Adult Nursing since the academic year of B.E.2544. There are currently 64.70 percent of Master graduates who passed the Thai Nursing Council exam to be an Advanced Practice Nurse in Medical and Surgical nursing. This research aimed to study the role development of those Advanced Practice Nurse (APN). Data were collected from 11 graduates who earned the Master degree in Advanced Adult Nursing at Christian University of Thailand and became the APNs and seven  head supervisors at workplaces. Data collection was taken by in-depth interviews between March B.E. 2555 and January B.E. 2556.

          The research findings showed that the development of APN roles consisted of three major aspects : 1) the Initiation period including desire of self development, understanding of course content and knowledge earning from  the study to apply in the workplace, and having  confidence in their knowledge to develop advanced practice nurses role ; 2) operational period including specifying the target population, defining their advanced practice nurses roles in the work settings, and perform theroles ; 3) monitoring period including self monitoring of their performances and evaluate and manage the outcomes. From these findings, the researchers suggest  that nurse administrators should support and set the mutual goal with nurses under their  advice  to develop themselves as advanced practice nurses, in accordance with work units' and organizational needs.