Published Jan 20, 2017
LessValuableNinja
754 Posts
Does anyone have thoughts on capitalization of APN specialties. For example: Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse, Advanced Practice Family Practice Nurse, and so on.
I realize that if it were, for example: Family Nurse Practitioner, or Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, it's capitalized, since that's a proper noun / title.
However, I am less clear on when it is not necessarily a title.
Yes, this is an APA question. However, it's not really well-defined in the blue book as far as I can see, since you could argue about whether or not it's a title. IE Board Certified Advanced Practice Nurse, versus Board certified advanced practice nurse, versus Board certified Advanced Practice Nurse.
If I had a choice, I'd simply use the ANCC/whatever certification, since it's always a proper noun, but in some cases articles use other names that are not the "real" certification, such as "Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurse." This becomes an issue in sentence case.
If I never have to use APA again, I will not cry.
casias12
101 Posts
I do all caps. ARNP.
xenogenetic
272 Posts
Look at how the major journals treat it and do the same. Enter the words in an journal search to get results.