Evidence based articles on the role of advanced nurse practitioners

Some of the NUR 685 students are having a hard time working on a paper on the role of advanced nurse practitioners. Send 'em to me of course, but if I'm not available and you're trying to help someone ASAP here are some tips.

As usual, be sure to ask them for the instructions for their assignment. I still haven't been shown these, just a clarification email that was sent to one of the students.

-In CINAHL, use the checkbox limit for "evidence based practice." It'll get the job done. Cuts results down to mostly systematic reviews, though it does let some "lower" levels of evidence sneak in
-If the student is determined to use ONLY systematic reviews, the publication type limit in CINAHL can be set to systematic reviews

If the limiting cuts ALL results out, try the usual tricks of the trade - truncation and OR

• role* is a good keyword to start with
• cinahl has different subject headings for advanced practice nursing and the people who do the job (apns), and for each of the apn specialties, so each of these will lead to slightly different results - Advanced Nursing Practice; advanced practice nurses; Nurse Practitioners; clinical nurse specialists; etc.

So a good keyword search to try would be

1. role* and advanced practice nurses
2. check "evidence based" in search limits

Thanks,
Lea