Improving Healthcare Practice with a DNP Project – Addressing Gaps and Enhancing Patient Outcomes

Improving Healthcare Practice with a DNP Project – Addressing Gaps and Enhancing Patient Outcomes

Student Name: AA

DNP Project Idea: Mindfulness-Based Self-Care Toolkit for Psychiatric Healthcare Staff

Potential DNP Project Information: (Include responses to the questions):

Brief description of the proposed DNP project idea. Please address the following:

What type of practice setting are you considering for project implementation?

The type of practice setting under consideration for the project is a hospital setup, specifically a psychiatric unit. The project focuses on healthcare professionals and exploits aspects of caregivers’ wellness that may influence their operationalizations.

What is the gap in practice or issue that needs to be resolved?

Caregivers’ well-being is integral to effective, high-quality, and safe psychiatric care. In the wake of a growing prevalence of mental health illnesses across the globe, healthcare professionals working in psychiatric departments are sometimes confronted with problems such as compassion fatigue, burnout, and stress. Burnout and compassion fatigue result in significant compromises in patient safety. They can lead to medical and medication errors and a decline in the caregiver’s mental and physical well-being (Khatatbeh et al., 2021). As such, mindfulness practices remain beneficial in relieving stress and burnout across populations and can be exploited by caregivers working in psychiatric facilities to improve their wellness and overall efficiency in care delivery. However, caregivers in these facilities have poor knowledge of the perceived benefits of mindfulness activities (Veigh et al., 2021). Additionally, these activities are poorly promoted in these settings, diminishing the potential for their usability by caregivers in enhancing wellness (Veigh et al., 2021). This warrants studies on mindfulness activities to improve the wellness of caregivers working in psychiatric health facilities.

What is the target population for the project idea?

The target group for the project is healthcare staff at a psychiatric facility. The project seeks to implement a mindfulness self-care toolkit in the group. Once completed, the project is expected to affirm the use of mindfulness in improving the physical and mental wellness of healthcare staff working in psychiatric health facilities.

What are the expected health outcomes that may result from the project idea?

The project is expected to affirm mindfulness as a self-care strategy for staff in psychiatric settings. It will expand the caregiver’s capacity to utilize diverse mindful interventions for self-care purposes and reinforce the need for care organizations and leaders to reinforce their use as a measure of enhancing staff’s effectiveness during care delivery.

Identify how the outcomes are measurable.

The staff’s capacity to utilize mindfulness interventions can be measured through a post-project questionnaire. These questionnaires will interrogate aspects of mindfulness, such as specific mindfulness interventions, their perceived benefits, and how healthcare staff can exploit them to their benefit. The project will be said to be successful when all the participants can verbalize several mindfulness interventions and their perceived benefits to their physical and mental wellness.

What are the proposed project interventions that can help achieve the outcomes?

The project outcomes can be attained through a systematic educative approach focusing on mindfulness activities. In this respect, organizing training sessions on mindfulness and cheer-up sessions for staff can help healthcare staff familiarize themselves with various mindfulness activities. Likewise, publications such as flyers themed with mindfulness activities can also help enhance staff knowledge of mindfulness.

How is this project idea different from a BSN or MSN-level project?

The project is distinct from MSN and BSN projects as it emphasizes evidence-based practice. BSN and MSN programs are mostly centered on advanced clinical practice, with the majority of the projects either seeking to add to the existing knowledge base on aspects of healthcare or solve an existing healthcare problem. DNP projects, on the other hand, focus on management or leadership-level problems and evidence-based practices to improve system operationalization. The project gives insight into how healthcare leadership can influence staff operationalization within healthcare facilities through evidence-based approaches. It postulates an evidence-based intervention likely to improve the efficiency of care delivery within a hospital unit.

Evidence to Support DNP Project Interventions: (Provide a brief synopsis of two articles, no older than five years, from the literature that supports your project idea)

There is a consensual finding on the effectiveness of mindfulness-based activities in enhancing healthcare staff efficiency and effectiveness in healthcare delivery. To begin with, an article by Wang et al. (2023) evaluates the effectiveness of mindfulness training in reducing stress and burnout among nurses. This systematic review article posits that mindfulness-based training is a viable intervention for improving the psychological wellness of nurses and can effectively reduce stress and burnout among nurses. In a fast-paced environment where nurses encounter varying challenges bordering high workloads, implementing these interventions could enhance the overall effectiveness of nursing care. Moreover, another article by Othman et al. (2023) affirms the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions in enhancing the effectiveness of nursing care. This quasi-experimental study interrogates the efficacy of mindfulness-based intervention sessions and self-compassion in lowering burnout among critical care nurses caring for COVID-19 patients. Mindfulness-based interventions are efficacious in lowering emotional exhaustion and depersonalization among critical care nurses. This warrants their use in conventional healthcare.

References

Khatatbeh, H., Pakai, A., Al‐Dwaikat, T., Onchonga, D., Amer, F., Prémusz, V., & Oláh, A. (2021). Nurses’ burnout and quality of life: A systematic review and critical analysis of measures used. Nursing Open, 9(3), 1564–1574. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.936

Othman, S. Y., Hassan, N. I., & Mohamed, A. M. (2023). Effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions on burnout and self-compassion among critical care nurses caring for patients with COVID-19: A quasi-experimental study. BMC Nursing, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-023-01466-8

Veigh, C. M., Reid, J., Carswell, C., Ace, L., Walsh, I., Graham-Wisener, L., Rej, S., Potes, A., Atkinson, K., Edginton, T., & Noble, H. (2021). Mindfulness as a well-being initiative for future nurses: A survey with undergraduate nursing students. BMC Nursing, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-021-00783-0

Wang, Q., Wang, F., Zhang, S., Liu, C., Feng, Y., & Chen, J. (2023). Effects of a mindfulness-based interventions on stress, burnout in nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1218340

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DNP Project Idea:

Educating Providers Without Prescriptive Authority About Psychopharmacology Basics: Bridging the Interdisciplinary Work Among Psychotropic Prescribers and Psychologists.

Improving Healthcare Practice with a DNP Project – Addressing Gaps and Enhancing Patient Outcomes

Potential DNP Project Information: (Include responses to the questions):

1. Brief description of the proposed DNP project idea. Please address the following:

• • What type of practice setting are you considering for project implementation?
  • What is the gap in practice or issue that needs to be resolved?
  • What is the target population for the project idea?
  • What are the expected health outcomes that may result from the project idea?
  • Identify how the outcomes are measurable.
  • What are the proposed project interventions that can help achieve the outcomes?
  • How is this project idea different from a BSN or MSN-level project?

1. Evidence to Support DNP Project Interventions: (Provide a brief synopsis of two articles, no older than five years, from the literature that supports your project idea)