Practice Situation of Advanced Practice Nurses under the Ministry of Public Health

Abstract

This article presented the practice situation of Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) under the Ministry of Public Health based on the survey of 711 APNs using developed questionnaires.  Results showed that most of APNs were female (98.6%), age ranged from 41-50 years (56.4%), working age ranged from 21-30 years (62.8%). Most of them were government officials at the professional level (99.7%), worked in the health service area-1 (16.0%) and at the hospital (A) (25.9%).  Most of them were APNs in the Medical-Surgical field (33.33%).  Working outcomes classified by specialty areas were mostly found in Medical-Surgical area with 341 titles (33.08%).  When classified by service plan, most of working outcomes were in the area of primary care and district health service with 264 titles (25.7%).  When classified the numbers of working outcomes per APN by the size of the hospital, it was found that the community hospital (F2) had the most working outcomes per person with the ratio of 1.7:1. The publications were mostly published and disseminated at the national level with 393 titles (38.12%).   However, most of them, 442 papers (42.87%) were not published.  It is suggested that the data from this study should be used to set up the policies on APNs’ structure and support system in order to promote quality and dissemination of the working outcomes continuously.