Advanced Practice Nursing in Primary Health Care

Abstract

Introduction: Advanced practice nursing consists in the quality care provided by a nurse expert in clinical knowledge and competences, which allows him/her to make complex decisions for the benefit of vulnerable populations, being a key activity in primary health care.

Objective: To analyze the scientific evidence related to the experiences of the implementation of advanced practice nursing in primary health care.

Methods: A systematic review was carried out, of articles published between 2010 and 2020 in the databases of SciELO, LILACS, Science Direct, Redalyc, PubMed and Elsevier, in Spanish, English and Portuguese, using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology. The Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS) and the MeSH descriptors were used in combination with the Boolean operators OR and AND. A total of 405 articles were reviewed and, after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 15 of them were selected.

Conclusions: Most of the reviewed studies support the need to enhance the progressive development of advanced practice nursing and its incorporation into the health system to respond to the health needs of the population, despite the fact that there are difficulties in its implementation, especially in regulation and training.