Operating Room Personnel Viewpoints About Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists.

The purpose of this project was to explore what attitudes physicians, nurses, and operating room technicians had about working with Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) to better understand practice barriers and facilitators. This Q methodology study used a purposive sample of operating room personnel from four institutions in the Midwestern United States. Participants completed a -4 to +4 rank-ordering of their level of agreement with 34 attitude statements representing a wide range of beliefs about nurse anesthetists. Centroid factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to analyze 24 returned Q sorts. Three distinct viewpoints emerged that explained 66% of the variance: favoring unrestricted practice, favoring anesthesiologist supervision, and favoring anesthesiologist practice. Research is needed on how to develop workplace attitudes that support autonomous nurse anesthetist practice and to understand preferences for restricted practice in team members other than physicians.