Critical care nurse

Management of Critical care patients is changing due to a rise in population age, comorbidity and complexity. To accommodate these changes, the demand is increasing for advanced practice nurses. More knowledge is needed regarding the role of advanced practice critical care nurses in Europe countries. The aim of the study was a literature review describing skills and competencies required for advanced practice critical care nursing in Europe and to investigate related policy.

Egerod et al. performed a scoping review including papers published in 1992-2019 targeting policy and the intersection of advanced practice nursing (level of practice), critical care nursing (specialty area), and Europe (geographical origin).

Design and data sources: Main sources of evidence were PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, SweMed+, Scopus, ERIC and Social Sciences Citation Index. They also searched grey literature, webpages, reference lists and performed hand-search.

Results: The search identified 11,478 papers/references of which 42 were included. Four levels of practice were identified with unclear boundaries: professional nurse, specialized nurse, advanced practice nurse and advanced critical care practitioner (nurse or other). Most skills and competencies described in the literature were generic to advanced practice and only a few were area-specific to critical care. Advanced practice critical care nurses were often unable to fulfill their role because education, supportive policy, and legislation were lacking.

This scoping review informs the policymakers and the INACTIC study of existing advanced practice in critical care nursing in Europe. The advanced role in critical care nursing is characterized by inconsistency regarding policy, education, titles, roles, scope of practice, skills and competencies. Levels of practice and areas of specialization need to be clarified. Most skills and competencies identified were generic for advanced practice nursing and many were generic for any profession. Physician–nurse task shifting needs to be more clearly defined and patient outcomes described. Given the scarcity of papers in this target area, they believe it might be too early to conduct a systematic review at this time ¹⁾.

Critical Care Nurse is a bimonthly peer-reviewed nursing journal covering research about bedside care of critically and acutely ill patients and critical and acute care nursing practice. It is published by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.