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Identifying nurse practitioners' required case management competencies in health promotion practice in municipal public primary health care. A two‐stage modified Delphi study
Author(s) -
Maijala Virpi,
Tossavainen Kerttu,
Turunen Hannele
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of clinical nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1365-2702
pISSN - 0962-1067
DOI - 10.1111/jocn.12855
Subject(s) - health promotion , delphi method , nursing , medicine , promotion (chess) , public health , health care , descriptive statistics , family medicine , medical education , political science , statistics , mathematics , politics , law
Aims and objectives The aims of this study were to identify and reach consensus among municipal primary health care participants on nurse practitioners' ( NP s') required case management competencies in health promotion practices in eastern Finland. Background The NP 's role as a case manager of patients with chronic conditions has been found to have positive outcomes in health promotion, such as reduced hospital lengths of stay and readmission rates. However, the challenging work of health promotion requires NP s to have multidimensional competencies in health promotion, including communication, advocacy, assessment, planning, consultation and implementation. Design A two‐stage modified Delphi study. Methods Round 1 semi‐structured interviews were conducted among municipal primary health care participants ( n = 42) in 11 health centres from April–July 2009, and the round 2 questionnaire survey was conducted in the same health centres in eastern Finland in January and March 2011. The questionnaire was answered by 64% of those surveyed ( n = 56). Content analysis and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results We identified a total of 18 required case management competencies for NP s' health promotion practices in municipal primary health care. In 17 of these competencies (such as knowledge, skills and ability to work independently in health promotion), a consensus was reached (51% or over). However, the need to be interested in municipal decision‐making (44·6%) did not reach consensus. Conclusion Consensus was clearly achieved for 17 competencies that NP s were required to have, and these indicated the knowledge or abilities of health promotion. Nevertheless, there was no agreement on the NP s' need to be interested in municipal decision‐making. Relevance to clinical practice NP s need a variety of case management skills and abilities to realise health promotion in municipal primary health care and they need to be supported by primary health care leaders to develop health promotion activities.