Nurses' Perceptions of the Clinical Nurse Specialist Role Implemented in a Highly Specialized University Hospital in Spain: A Qualitative Study.

Purpose/aims: To explore nurses' perceptions of clinical nurse specialist practice as implemented in a highly specialized university hospital in Spain.

Design: A descriptive qualitative study was carried out in 3 inpatient wards, with a clinical nurse specialist within the team, at a high specialized university hospital in Spain.

Method: Semistructured interviews were conducted by purposive sampling with 17 selected nurses with at least 2 years of professional experience who voluntarily agreed to participate and signed the informed consent form. Analysis of the qualitative data was conducted according to Burnard's method of content analysis. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist was used.

Results: Four main categories emerged from the analysis of the data: "qualities of the role-holder," "role competencies in practice," "integration with the team," and "impact of the role" on nursing, the patient, and the organization.

Conclusions: The findings of this study have interesting implications for the development and implementation of clinical nurse specialist practice in healthcare organizations. They also provide evidence of the benefit of implementing clinical nurse specialist practice for improving the quality of care, patient outcomes, and healthcare efficiency.