title: Neonatal nurse practitioners: identity as advanced practice nurses.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To define how neonatal nurse practitioners (NNPs) perceive their identity as advanced practice nurses.
  
  
  METHODS
  Non-experimental descriptive and correlational survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  Nationwide random sample drawn from NNPs certified by the National Certification Corporation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two hundred fifty-eight neonatal nurse practitioners practicing in neonatal intensive-care units across the United States.
  
  
  METHODS
  Neonatal Nurse Practitioners indicated on a visual analogue scale at which point their philosophy of practice fell on a continuum from nursing to medicine and specified on a 5-point bipolar Likert scale how various role socialization factors influenced their identity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The NNPs predominantly were certificate-prepared and aligned themselves with a medical philosophy. Those NNPs who were master's-prepared (p < .01), precepted by another NNP (p < .05), espoused a philosophy of nursing (p < .001), belonged to a professional nursing organization (p < .05), and had an NNP role model (p < .001) were more likely to have a strong nursing identity (95% confidence interval).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The issues of role differentiation, socialization, and identity of advanced practice nurses in tertiary care need further exploration. These data support the American Nurses' Association mandate of graduate nursing education for advanced nurse practitioners.
authors.affiliation: Simmons College Graduate School for Health Studies, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Beal
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Maguire
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007587:Job Description; D008297:Male; D017283:Neonatal Nursing; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000193:education / Q000523:psychology*; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D012380:Role; D012933:Social Identification; D012951:Socialization; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States