Despite representing the largest segment of the United States’ health care system, nurses remain far removed from the level of political engagement required to efficiently influence health policy at institutional, local, state, and federal levels in the United States (NAS, 2015). The lack of political engagement among the nursing profession has resulted in the profession’s inability to form a united voice and lead movements within health policy. To address these monumental issues, it is imperative to perform further research on effective methods to increase political engagement within the nursing profession. The term political astuteness is a more comprehensive term than political engagement, as it also entails political awareness and political knowledge. Despite the term’s increased complexity, in this project, the two terms may be used interchangeably. The purpose of this project is to provide additional understanding of the effectiveness attendance of a health policy conference, combined with legislative meetings, has as a potential method to increase nurses’ political engagement (AANP, 2017, n.d.; NCSBN, 2016).
Increasing political engagement is vital for the advancement of both the nursing profession and the United States’ health care system. Despite the essential need for the implementation of proven methods to increase political engagement among members of the nursing profession, a significant literature gap continues to exist on viable options. The overarching goal of this project is to decrease the current gap in the literature by measuring the impact conference participation and face-to-face meetings with Federal House and or Senate Representatives, or their respective legislative staff, has on attendees of the 2018 American Association of Nurse Practitioners’ Health Policy Conference and their perceptions of their political astuteness. A convenience pre and post descriptive survey using the Political Astuteness Inventory tool, with the author's permission, will be used to measure the attendees’ perception of their political astuteness.
