Education
The availability of educational programmes
for advanced nursing practice is a third driver to
be considered in the analysis for the introduction/
development of APN in a particular health
care setting. Indeed, APN roles can only be introduced
and developed in a particular country if
there are educational programmes available that
provide APN as an end point.
Education has been a major influencing factor
in the introduction of the APN roles. In the USA
the first curriculum for Clinical Nurse Specialist
(a special kind of APN) was launched in 1954 and
the first curriculum for Nurse Practitioners was
created in 1965. [46, 47] In Europe the launching
of clinical nursing programmes at graduate level
has influenced the introduction of the APN role
in clinical settings as was the case at the University
of Leuven in Belgium (1986) and the University
of Basel in Switzerland (2000) [