As travel medicine is highly protocolized, with clear quality criteria, supplementary prescribing by nurses seems appropriate. The nation’s foremost travel health nursing organization favors implementation of the 2011 ruling. However, the opinion of the individual travel health nurse has not been investigated. We conducted a questionnaire survey among all Dutch travel health nurses to assess whether they aspire and feel competent to prescribe, and whether they have related educational needs. In October 2011, we attempted to reach all Dutch travel health nurses with a questionnaire, to be completed anonymously. Designed using NetQ®
Vorinostat concentration (NetQuestionnaires Nederland BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands), the questionnaire was directed to 382 LCR-registered travel health nurses and also to 93 travel health nurses who are not registered but subscribed to LCR services. These 475 nurses were invited to participate through an email including a link to the questionnaire. In addition, to optimize overall response and to reach nurses without LCR registration or subscription, invitations including a link to the questionnaire were sent by post to all Dutch travel clinics. Reminders Selleck BIBW2992 were sent twice, only by email. The deadline for participation was December 1, 2011. The questionnaire consisted of three different sections with
a maximum of 31 questions, depending on the answers provided. The first section addressed the demographics of individual participants, eg, length of experience as travel health nurses, LCR registered or not, and type of employer organization. This section also questioned their current practice of travel care, eg, number of patients who were given travel health advice (which includes vaccinations, malaria chemoprophylaxis, and pertinent advice). Tick boxes were included to indicate responses. The second section focused on adherence to LCR quality criteria and examined current practice within an employer organization and the daily routines
Depsipeptide concerning prescribing medication, eg, method of checking accuracy of prescriptions and advice, availability of consulting physician, and average monthly number of patients given malaria chemoprophylaxis. To limit the size of the questionnaire, the questions concerning prescribing medication focused on prescriptions for malaria chemoprophylaxis rather than vaccinations, as vaccines are usually administered without a prescription and therefore seldom cause prescribing difficulties. In this section also, tick boxes were supplied to indicate response. If a response deviated from current LCR quality criteria, an open field and/or another question followed to motivate the response. The final section asked whether and why nurses aspire to prescribe, feel competent to prescribe, and whether they perceive educational needs. Open fields were used for the aspiration and competence question. A list with seven fixed and three open-ended answers was used to indicate educational needs.