Rural Acceptance of the Nurse Practitioner

The rural community has lacked adequate healthcare providers for the past thirty years. Collaboration between physician and family nurse practitioner is an option for meeting the need for delivery of primary healthcare in the rural community. A descriptive design was used to describe the acceptance of the nurse practitioner by patients living in rural southcentral Kentucky who utilize the services of the community hospital. Every fifth inpatient and outpatient discharge was mailed the Kviz Assessment Questionnaire and a demographic survey. The questionnaires (N = 842) were mailed over a four week survey period with reminder postcards mailed to each survey recipient one week after the initial mailing. The return rate was 32% (N = 267). Respondents were asked if they would allow a specially trained nurse practitioner to perform 12 specific functions, of which 4 were traditional and 8 were nontraditional. The majority of the respondents indicated acceptance of the traditional and nontraditional functions. Use of chi-square analysis identified a statistically significant relationship between the willingness to accept nontraditional nursing functions and (a) respondents who were satisfied with their usual source of care [X2 (4, N = 230) = 5.93, p = .01]; (b) respondents who obtained regular check-ups [X2 (4, N = 239) = 6.53, p = .01]; (c) respondent age [X2 (6, N = 238) = 7.27, p = .03]; and (d) respondents who felt there is an insufficient quantity of physicians available [X2 (6, N = 225) = 10.83, p = .01].

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Nursing

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Nursing

Year

1997

Author dc:creator

• Branstetter, Mary

• Nursing

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/768

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.wku.edu:theses-1771