SUPPORT summaries

Nurse practitioners - Do nurse practitioners working in primary care provide equivalent care to doctors?

Nurse practitioners are nurses who have undergone further training, often at graduate level, to work autonomously; making independent diagnoses and treatment decisions. It is important to consider whether the evidence supports the notion that nurse practitioners can substitute for doctors by providing safe, effective, and economical front line management of patients.

Key messages

- Low to moderate quality evidence indicates that patient health outcomes were similar for nurse practitioners and doctors, but that patient satisfaction and quality of care were better for nurse practitioners.
- Moderate quality evidence suggests that nurse practitioners had longer consultations and undertook more investigations than doctors. No significant differences between nurse practitioners and doctors were found regarding numbers of prescriptions, return consultations and referrals.
- The studies included in the review were conducted in high- come countries and do not provide high quality evidence of the economic impacts of substituting nurse practitioners for doctors.