Kinchen, Elizabeth V.

Holistic care has long been a defining attribute of nursing practice. From the earliest years of its
<br>formal history, nursing has favored a holistic approach in the care of patients, an approach that is grounded in relationship and considers the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. With passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act PPACA and the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s report on the future of nursing, nurses are slated to take on an expanded role in healthcare delivery in the near future. Nurse practitioners, in particular, will be instrumental in filling the gap in primary care availability engendered by the increasing specialization of physician practice and increased access to healthcare made possible by the provisions of the PPACA.
<br>This pilot study used a Content Validity Index CVI, with a convenience sample of experts n8 in Nurse Practitioner care and Holistic Nursing practice, to evaluate the Nurse Practitioner Holistic Caring Instrument NPHCI, a new, investigator-developed measure of the holistic attributes of Nurse Practitioner care. Analysis of CVI responses revealed that the majority of participants were in perfect agreement 1.00 in rating the scale as a whole as ‘content relevant’. In addition, 14 out of 19 instrument items were accorded a perfect score of 1.00. Free-text responses were also solicited in evaluating validity of the instrument. Results from this pilot study indicate that the NPHCI has sufficient validity to render it eligible for use in a larger study, surveying patients on holistic attributes of Nurse Practitioner care.

With passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the
publication of the Institute of Medicine’s report on the future of nursing, nurses are slated to take on an expanded role in primary healthcare delivery in the near future. Nurse practitioners, in particular, will be instrumental in filling the gap in primary care
availability engendered by the increasing specialization of physician practice and
increased access to healthcare made possible by the provisions of the PPACA.
The need for this study was identified through gaps in the literature related to nurse practitioner practice; specifically, the paucity of quantitative research regarding
patients’ perspectives of core holistic nursing values in nurse practitioner care, and, since nursing care is by definition and tradition holistic in nature, this inquiry attempted to quantify the degree to which nurse practitioner care upholds and preserves core holistic nursing values.