Smith, Linda Anne2018-09-252018-09-251999http://hdl.handle.net/11603/11368The purpose of this study was to investigate whether relationships existed between the reported clinical breast examination skills of nurse practitioners and clinical specialty, years in nursing, age, and frequency of performing breast examinations. The specialties were adult, geriatric, family, and women's health. A non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive design was used for the investigation. The final sample was comprised of 495 participants, primarily women, who had been registered nurses for approximately twenty years and nurse practitioners for approximately eight years. The number of breast examinations that participants performed in a month ranged between zero and 350 (M = 34.75, SD = 53.41) with women's health nurse practitioners reporting the greatest number (M = 103.54). The Modified Breast Examination Skills Checklist and a demographic questionnaire were employed for data collection. The MBESC reported a Cronbach's alpha of 0.8345. Eighty-two percent of the sample achieved a performance rating consistent with competency. No differences in reported breast examination skills were found among the three specialties of nurse practitioners. Pearson Product-Moment correlations indicated weakly positive, but significant relationships between the number of breast examinations performed by nurse practitioners and reported breast examination skills (r =.16, df= 410, p = 0.0001), age and reported breast examination skills (r =.14, df= 411, p = 0.003), and years licensed as a registered nurse and reported breast examination skills (r = .16, df= 409, p = 0.001). No relationship existed between years licensed as nurse practitioner and reported breast examination skills.96 pagesen-USNurse practitioners -- Breast examination skillsRegistered nurses -- Breast examination skillsText