The rural nurse practitioner: a challenge and a response

From a cohort of 525 employed nurse practitioners (NPs) who graduated between May 1975 and June 1976, 85 (16%) reported practising in rural areas. While 91% of the rural NPs chose the short-term certificate programs rather than the master's degree for their NP preparation, 47% had already earned a baccalaureate or master's degree prior to NP training. Family NPs comprised the most frequent specialty area chosen, followed by pediatric and adult specialties. Of the 85, 99% were actually providing a broad array of primary care services to clients over a wide age range. Physicians were periodically available on site in about 80% of the practices, by telephone in 97% of the practices, and in 60% of the practices provided additional consultation by record review. Major motivations of the NPs for entering rural practice were to participate in a creative approach to health care delivery (50% of the practice settings were less than five years old), and for the opportunity for role autonomy. Over 95% of these NPs and employers were satisfied with the NP role.