Advanced practice nurse education in its infancy: an exploratory study of Norwegian higher education institutions’ program descriptions

Figures & data

Table 1. Presentation of clinical master program options for nurses in Norway, as included in this study.

Institution	Focus^a	ECTS	Master thesis (ECTS)	Elective courses (ECTS)	Clinical training^b
A	Primary care	120	30	–	300
B	Primary care and secondary care	120	45	–	150
C	Chronic illness	120	30	15	180
D	Diabetes	120	40	–	150
D	Cardiology	120	40	–	150
E	General nursing	120	30	10	480
E	Neonatal nursing	120	30	5	600
E	Illness management	120	30	–	810
F	General nursing	120	30	7.5	180
G	Geriatric nursing	120	30	–	416
H	General nursing	120	30	25	450
I	Emergency Nursing	120	30	10	180*
I	Gerontologic nursing	120	30	10	180*
I	Nephrology nursing	120	30	10	270*
I	Palliative nursing	120	30	10	120*

^a Focus areas of the programs are based on the names of the program. ^bThe clinical training in each program is presented in hours. Hours that were not specified beyond weeks or days were calculated using the following formula: day  = 7.5 h, week = 30 h, and in interval descriptions (e.g., 5–6 weeks); the highest number was used. Instances where such calculation was performed are marked by *.

Table 2. Example of the coding procedure of learning outcomes. Code relationships within knowledge, skills and general competence, as well as a learning outcome as a single code, are exemplified.

	Learning outcome	Code	Representation
Knowledge	Advanced knowledge on nursing, treatment, and care to patients with complex and complicated disease conditions.	Nursing, treatment, and care	Nursing
		Patients with complex and complicated disease conditions	Patient
Skills	Analyze and critically assess different knowledge sources, summarize relevant knowledge and use this for professional assessment, innovation, and reasoning in clinically complex situations	Different knowledge sources, summarize relevant knowledge	System
		Professional, innovation, and reasoning in clinically complex situations	Nursing
General competence	Manage the patient’s and next of kin’s right to active participation and cooperation in accordance with current laws and systems of agreements.	Patient and next of kin’s right to active participation and cooperation	Patient
		Current laws and systems of agreements	System
Knowledge	Thorough knowledge on philosophy of science, research methods, and research ethics.	Philosophy of science, research methods, and research ethics	System (single code)

Table 3. Presentation of findings from the learning outcome analysis, presenting relationships between codes in the same learning outcome. The table is sorted according to the total instances of each relationship identified across all types of learning outcomes.

Code relationship	Knowledge	Skills	General competence	Total
System – System	17	37	16	70
System (single code)	19	6	23	48
System – Nursing	16	21	6	43
Nursing – Patient	20	9	1	30
Nursing – System	3	4	18	25
Nursing – Nursing	1	2	19	22
Patient – Patient	8	5	3	16
System – Patient	5	5	3	13
Nursing (single code)	4	4	4	12
Patient – System	2	6	3	11
Patient – Nursing	1	9	0	10
Patient (single code)	2	0	1	3
Total	98	108	97	303

Table 4. Distribution of subjects within themes, based only on course names.

Theme	Details	Total ETCS	Number of programs
Master thesis		485	15/15
Research and development	Philosophy of science, research ethics, methods, and project plan	407.5	15/15
Advanced nursing	Generically named courses of nursing related to context or disease, e.g., “advanced clinical nursing in primary health care” and “palliative nursing 1”	387.5	15/15
Natural science subjects	Pharmacology, medical treatment, pathophysiology, and traumatology	185.5	9/15
Health assessment		120	8/15
Other	Communication, organization, values, and ethics	115	13/15

Table A1. Links to education program website sourced for the analysis, and the date of download.

Institution	Focus in Table 1	Date	URL
A	Primary care	03.06.20	https://ez.inn.no/studiehaandbok/studiehaandboeker/2020-2021-studiehaandbok/studier/hsv-fakultet-for-helse-og-sosialvitenskap/master/maksd-master-i-avansert-klinisk-sykepleie-i-kommunehelsetjenesten
B	Primary care and secondary care	03.06.20	https://www.himolde.no/studier/program/avansert-klinisk-sykepleie/
C	Chronic illness	03.06.20	https://www.hiof.no/studier/programmer/mavspl-masterstudium-i-avansert-sykepleie-ved-kronisk-sykdom/
D	Diabetes	03.06.20	https://www.hvl.no/studier/studieprogram/klinisk-sykepleie-diabetessykepleie/
D	Cardiology	03.06.20	https://www.hvl.no/studier/studieprogram/klinisk-sykepleie-kardiologisk-sykepleie/
E	General nursing	04.06.20	https://ldh.no/studietilbud/masterstudier/master-i-avansert-klinisk-allmennsykepleie
E	Neonatal nursing	20.05.20	https://ldh.no/studietilbud/masterstudier/master-i-avansert-klinisk-nyfodtsykepleie
E	Illness management	04.06.20	https://ldh.no/studietilbud/masterstudier/masteri-avansert-klinisk-sykepleie-intensiv-allmenn
F	General nursing	10.08.20	https://www.ntnu.no/studier/mklisp/avansert-klinisk-sykepleie
G	Geriatric nursing	04.06.20	https://www.uio.no/studier/program/geriatrisk-sykepleie-master/index.html
H	General nursing	04.06.20	https://www.usn.no/studier/studie-og-emneplaner/#/studieplan/MAKS_2020_H%C3%98ST
I	Emergency Nursing	04.06.20	https://www.vid.no/studier/master-i-klinisk-sykepleie/
I	Gerontologic nursing	04.06.20	https://www.vid.no/studier/master-i-klinisk-sykepleie/
I	Nephrology nursing	04.06.20	https://www.vid.no/studier/master-i-klinisk-sykepleie/
I	Palliative nursing	04.06.20	https://www.vid.no/studier/master-i-klinisk-sykepleie/