Identifying standards, meeting expectations: comparing regulatory standards and community health nursing practice standards.

In Canada, standards from regulatory and professional bodies provide a framework for nursing practice. In a research study, the authors compared the national standards of practice developed for community health nurses by the Community Health Nurses Association of Canada (CHNAC) with those in the standards of practice developed by provincial/territorial regulatory bodies. The results of the study revealed that of 210 separate ideas, or categories of ideas, the authors identified in all 13 documents, only 58 appeared in both the regulatory and CHNAC documents; 122 were unique to the regulatory standards; 30 were unique to the CHNAC standards. These results suggest a need for associations and specialty groups, notably national ones, to integrate regulatory standards into their own documents and build upon them to reflect the dimensions of specialty practice.