Date of Award

Fall 2022

Degree Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Chair

Dr. Carolyn Coleman

Committee Chair School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Member 2

Dr. Lakenya Forthner

Committee Member 2 School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Abstract

Dermatology-certified nurse practitioners (DCNPs) have validated knowledge of a dermatology core curriculum and have at least 3,000 hours of formal or informal dermatology training (Dermatology Nurse Practitioner Certification Board [DNPCB], n.d.a). With their standardized education and training, DCNPs are meeting the benchmarks set out by dermatologists. Subsequently, DCNPs have become the new gold standard for dermatology advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs).

However, there is no mention of DCNPs by the American Academy of Dermatology (American Academy of Dermatology [AAD], 2022), and personal experience with dermatologists is that they lack knowledge about DCNPs. This lack of knowledge could create an impasse for interprofessional collaboration (IPC), as the most frequently reported barrier to meaningful collaboration between physicians and APRNs is the physician’s lack of awareness of the APRN’s role and scope of practice (Schadewaldt et al., 2013). One approach to promote IPC is interprofessional education (IPE). IPE has been shown to increase knowledge and skills related to collaboration as well as improve attitudes regarding collaboration(Guraya & Barr, 2018).

This project used an original IPE video on the role, scope of practice, and collaborative benefits of the DCNP as its intervention with a descriptive pretest-posttest design. The main objective of this project was to determine if the intervention would increase dermatologists’ baseline knowledge about DCNPs as evidenced by a positive improvement score. Improvement is the posttest’s average percent of correct answers minus the pretest’s average percentage of correct answers, and this score can be positive or negative(Delucchi, 2014). Another objective of this doctoral project was to determine if dermatologists believed that the intervention improved their understanding of the DCNPs as evidenced by survey responses.

Overall, the intervention was found to be effective with an improvement score of +8.3%. Also, all three participants strongly agreed that the IPE video improved their understanding of the role of the DCNP. In conclusion, IPE is a relatively inexpensive tool that was found to be effective in this project. As the number of DCNPs rise, IPE can be used to educate the dermatology workforce to promote meaningful IPC during a much-needed time.

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