Perceptions of employers and educators toward the importance of functions of the clinical nurse specialist

Abstract

A survey of educators and employers of clinical nurse specialists in eleven Midwestern states was undertaken to determine if these two groups held similar perceptions of the importance of functions of the clinical nurse specialist. An instrument, the Clinical Nurse Specialist Functions Inventory (CNSFI) was developed which consisted of 37 items, each representing one function of the clinical nurse specialist. Each function fit into one of four components of the role of the CNS, i.e., clinical, education, administration, and research. From a population of graduate nursing faculty and nursing administrators, a randomly selected sample was drawn. Seven hundred seventy seven individuals were contacted and 676 individuals (88%) responded. From this number, 152 educators and 190 employers completed biographical and institutional data and the function statement portions of the CNSFI. The remainder were employers who completed the first portion of the CNSFI, indicating they did not employ clinical nurse specialists.

Two hypotheses were tested using the t-test for independent means. Although there were significant differences between the independent means found on 30 of 37 individual functions and on all components of the role of the clinical nurse specialist, the two groups tended to view the functions in the same general direction of importance. Using the mean score for each item it was possible to identify the 10 most highly valued functions for each group and the 10 least valued functions for each group. The employer and educator rank order lists included many common items (7 of 10 for the most highly valued functions and 9 of 10 for the least valued functions). The clinical functions were most frequently represented in the most highly valued list and administrative functions were most frequently represented on the least highly valued list. Related findings dealt with biographical and institutional information and selected characteristics of the clinical nurse specialist as reported by the employers.