Psychometric testing: Nurse Practitioner Treatment Competency Instrument (NPTCI) as applied in advanced emergency practice

Nurse practitioners (NPs) providing care in the emergency department do not have formally recognized treatment competencies. The purpose of the study was to establish a definition of the practice of the emergency nurse practitioner (ENP) by examining the treatment competencies. The task analysis branch of the Kane model "Model-Based Practice Analysis and Test Specification" was used to establish the framework for conceptualization and identification of treatment competencies for ENPs. Data for this study were collected using the Nurse Practitioner Treatment Competency Instrument (NPTCI). This instrument examines demographic information related to NP practice and the relevance of specific activities/tasks that were identified by established competencies of family and acute care NPs. The survey instrument was sent by mail to a national sample of family, acute care, and emergency NPs. Of the total of 1,788 surveys sent, 582 completed surveys were returned, and 42 of the 582 were from ENPs. The NPTCI was found to be reliable and valid using factor analysis and Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients. Fifteen competencies of 89 on the NPTCI were not relevant to the ENP.