Interprofessional "on-call" e-learning for family nurse practitioner students: Preparing for primary care across the life span.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Nurse practitioners (NPs) are expected to fill gaps in providing primary care in the United States and need vital skills to meet the growing need for primary care providers. One necessary skill is managing "on-call" clinical questions/concerns by patients across the life span. To date, there are no published studies that address "on-call" simulations for family NP (FNP) students across the life span.

METHODS: This quasi-experimental, mixed-methods design used a confidence scale and Krippendorff's method for content analysis of discussion pages to determine the effectiveness and confidence of simulated "on-call" scenarios for FNP students during each of their clinical courses.

CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant increase in the confidence level of students as measured by the confidence questionnaire (t = 3.07 [33]; p < .001), at the end of the FNP didactic and clinical courses. Krippendorff content analysis revealed three themes: self-reliance; thinking on your feet; and uncertainty of management.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: "On-call" processing is a skill that is needed in graduate FNP programs so that these providers are fully prepared to meet any challenge they may encounter.