Current state of genomics in nursing: A scoping review of healthcare provider oriented (clinical and educational) outcomes (2012-2022)

In the 20 years since the initial sequencing of the human genome, genomics has become increasingly relevant to nursing. We sought to chart the current state of genomics in nursing by con-ducting a systematic scoping review of the literature in four databases (2012-2022). Included articles were categorized according to Cochrane Collaboration outcome domains/sub-domains and thematic analysis was employed to identify key topical areas to summarize the state of the science. Of 8,532 retrieved articles, we identified 232 eligible articles. Articles primarily reported descriptive studies from the United States and other high-income countries (191/232, 82%). More than half (126/232, 54.3%) aligned with the “healthcare provider oriented outcomes” outcome domain. Three-times as many articles related to the “knowledge and understanding” sub-domain com-pared to the “consultation process” subdomain (96 vs. 30). Five key areas of focus were identified including ‘nursing practice’ (50/126, 40%), ‘genetic counseling and screening’ (29/126, 23%), ‘specialist nursing’ (21/126, 17%), ‘nurse preparatory education’ (17/126, 13%), and ‘pharmacogenomics’ (9/126, 7%). Only 42/126 (33%) articles reported interventional studies. To further integrate genomics into nursing, study findings indicate there is a need to move beyond descriptive work on knowledge and understanding to focus on interventional studies and implementation of genomics into nursing practice.