Recommendations for Specialty Palliative APRN Graduate Education.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) are essential to care for the growing number of individuals with advanced illness given the shortage of palliative care clinicians.
PROBLEM: Graduate education for specialty practice palliative APRNs lacks consistency in structure, content, and standardization of specialty palliative APRN education.
APPROACH: A workgroup of expert palliative APRNs and graduate faculty conducted focused discussions and a literature review to develop consensus recommendations based on national palliative APRN competencies and aligned with the 8 core concepts of the AACN Essentials.
OUTCOME: Recommendations include: (a) definition of core concepts; (b) associated skills; (c) andragogical approaches; (d) evaluation methods; and (e) references for curricular development.
CONCLUSION: The Recommendations for Specialty Palliative APRN Education is a first step toward the standardization of quality advanced practice specialty palliative nursing education. These recommendations provide the foundation for a comprehensive curriculum for palliative APRNs.
