| Learning Objective #1: Discover and elucidate the essences of the experiences of nurse practitioners interacting with their patients | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Demonstrate the use of the phenomenological method of inquiry in nursing research |
The number of nurse practitioners providing primary care is rapidly growing, and they are depended upon to deliver quality-nursing care now and in the future (NLN, 2002). The purpose of this study is to discover the essences of the lived experiences of nurse practitioners interacting with their patients. Six nurse practitioners from various practice settings and specialty areas provide a convenience purposeful sample. The data were concrete descriptions of the nurse practitioners’ lived-experiences interacting with their patients. Data were analyzed using the descriptive phenomenological method of inquiry articulated by Amedeo Giorgi (1985, 1997). The essences discovered and articulated were openness, connection, concern, competence, respect, reciprocity, time, and professional identity. These eight essences are the constituents of the general essential structure of the experiences of nurse practitioners interacting with their patients, and always appear whenever nurse practitioners interact with their patients. In today’s health care environment the imperative of the nurse’s relationship with the patient, and the essential nature of that experience, is sometimes overlooked in deference to technology, economic conditions, and social change. The nurse practitioners in this study confirmed the importance of an individualized relationship with the patient and the essential nature of that experience. It is this relationship that allowed them to experience themselves as nurses and provided professional and personal satisfaction. This study has implications for nurse clinicians, program administrators, and nurse educators insofar as it illuminates the constituents of the nursing experience that engender a current definition of nursing.
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