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Nurse Practitioner Managed Care for Persons with HIV Infection
Author(s) -
Aiken Linda H.,
Lake Eileen T.,
Semaan Salaam,
Lehman Heidi P.,
O'Hare Patricia A.,
Cole C. Suzanne,
Dunbar Deborah,
Frank Ian
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
image: the journal of nursing scholarship
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1547-5069
pISSN - 0743-5150
DOI - 10.1111/j.1547-5069.1993.tb00777.x
Subject(s) - medicine , nurse practitioners , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , family medicine , odds ratio , health care , exploratory research , odds , nursing , logistic regression , sociology , anthropology , economics , economic growth
This exploratory study examined whether outcomes of care for HIV‐infected patients are related to whether the patient's primary provider is a physician (MD) or a nurse practitioner (NP). Functional status, symptom occurrence, self management, health service use and patients' assessment of their care were evaluated for 87 HIV‐infected patients in a teaching hospital outpatient setting. NP patients were three times as likely to report their health status as only fair or poor (odds‐ratio=3.06, p=.028), and reported significantly more unpleasant symptoms over a four‐week period. Despite being in poorer health than patients cared for by physicians, NP patients functioned at comparable levels and used no more health care services than MD patients. NP patients reported 45 percent fewer problems with their care (p=0.003). Findings suggest that more extensive use of nurse practitioners could safely enhance access to care for persons with HIV‐related illnesses.