Nurse prescribing: Attitudes of medical doctors towards expanding professional competencies of nurses and midwives

Objective: To identify the attitudes of doctors regarding prescriptive competences of nurses and midwives since these have been recently regulated in several countries. Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted at the Medical University of Warsaw from February 1 to 7, 2016 and comprised doctors working at the Prof. Jan Nielubowicz Regional Medical Chamber in Warsaw, Poland. A specially designed 36-item questionnaire that had 22 statements was used regarding the role of the reform in the healthcare system; the need of granting nurses and midwives particular competencies; and their preparation and readiness for these competencies. The respondents assessed the statements using a Likert scale (1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree). STATISTICA 13.2 was used for data analysis. Results: Of the 436 doctors, 245(56%) were women. The subjects presented different opinions about the reforms, especially about possible improvement in patient care with nurses prescribing, or the process getting simplified for the care-seekers. Most doctors believed that nurses and midwives were not yet equipped enough to prescribe certain medicines or issue prescriptions (1,79/5). Only in case of nurses and midwives being able to 're-order' medicines earlier prescribed by a doctor, the attitudes of primary care physicians was significantly different than those involved with hospital care (p=0.048). Conclusions: Doctors were sceptical about expanding professional competences of nurses and midwives regarding drug prescription.