Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Final Projects
The Doctor of Nursing Practice Final Projects collection contains the completed works of students from the DNP Program at Arizona State University's College of Nursing and Health Innovation. These projects are the culminating product of the curricula and demonstrate clinical scholarship.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Health literacy
- All Subjects: Communication
Background: The consequences of poor communication or non-therapeutic communication cannot be overemphasized; these can include non-adherence to treatment plan, reduced treatment compliance, higher psychological morbidity, dissatisfaction with care and poor patient-caregiver relationship. Patients’ perception of how they are being treated affects how they respond to treatment plans and medication regimens
Method: The project consisted of providing education on the principles of therapeutic communication to healthcare workers in an outpatient psychiatric clinic. Follow up materials on therapeutic communication principles were provided on a weekly basis for one month. A pre-survey questionnaire was given to patients before intervention and a post-survey questionnaire after intervention to determine patient satisfaction with care and degree of communication with healthcare workers. The Short Assessment of Patient Satisfaction (SAPS) and the Communication Assessment Tool-Team (CAT-T) were the instruments utilized in this project.
Finding: Patient satisfaction and communication with staff were statistically and significantly improved after education on therapeutic communication was given to staff.
Conclusion: Education on therapeutic communication is an effective intervention tool in improving patient’s satisfaction and communication with staff and health care team members in a psychiatric outpatient clinic.
Design: Using an established program for health literacy education, a Doctor of Nursing Practice project was implemented. The effect the program had on increasing the health literacy of participants over a period of 4 weeks was examined. The predominately, Latina participants received three hours of instruction based upon the health literacy book “What to do When Your Child Gets Sick”.
Setting and Subjects: The educational program took place in a large, urban county in the Southwestern United States with 24 parents of preschool age children in Head Start.
Intervention: The educational program contained three hours of classroom instruction utilizing PowerPoint® presentation, demonstration, and teach-back techniques on how to care for a child’s healthcare needs.
Measures and Analysis: Pre-, post- and telephone surveys were used to assess the impact of the health literacy educational program. Wilcoxon and Freidman tests were used to interpret the results.
Results: Despite no significant increases in health literacy post implementation, participants’ remarked that they felt the class was helpful and wanted to share the information with friends and family. They appreciated the program and wanted more educational opportunities.
Conclusion: Advanced practice nurses must acquire understanding, cultural sensitivity, and assess the needs of the community when implementing health literacy educational projects.
As the incidence of acute and chronic wound conditions rises and wound dressing protocols become more complex, uninsured patients lacking access to specialty wound care are challenged to manage their own wounds. Understanding multistep dressing change protocols may be inhibited by low health literacy. Low health literacy is associated with reduced disease knowledge and self-care. Little evidence of health literacy effects on wound patients is available nor are literacy-sensitive educational interventions that address wound knowledge and self-care. Improved outcomes occur in all health literacy levels in other diseases with the use of literacy-sensitive educational interventions that incorporate more than one literacy strategy over multiple sessions. To examine the effectiveness of a literacy-sensitive wound education intervention on wound knowledge and self-care, an evidence-based pilot project was conducted in an urban wound clinic.
A convenience sample of 21 patients received a literacy-sensitive wound education intervention consisting of spoken and written communication over several sessions. Instruments measured health literacy level, wound knowledge, dressing performance, and wound healing status. There was a significant increase in wound knowledge scores in all literacy groups from baseline to visit two (p < .01) and four (p < .01). Dressing performance scores remained consistently high through visit four in all literacy levels. All participant’s wounds progressed toward wound healing significantly from baseline to visit two (p < .01) and four (p < .01). Incorporation of a literacy-sensitive education intervention with supportive literacy aids over several sessions supports improved wound knowledge and dressing self-care and can affect healing in patients of all health literacy levels.
Method: Pre-licensure nursing students participated in a high fidelity simulation experience. One group of students viewed a video role modeling SBAR before beginning the simulation (N=20). Student communication using SBAR was evaluated after the simulation experience for both groups. The second group of students did not view the video role modeling SBAR until after completing the simulation (N=20).
Results: Viewing a role modeling video on SBAR before participating in a simulation had no effect on the students SBAR performance after the simulation. The students’ evaluation of the video reported the video provided a clear, helpful demonstration of the SBAR communication method.
Conclusion: Role modeling can be used to improve students’ ability to apply SBAR, however more research needs to be done to determine the most effective way to role model the behavior.