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.
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- Creators: Bucci, Aimee
- Creators: Clark-Deuel, Janna
While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, America’s nursing work force continue to work in the most challenging of circumstances. While expected to hold the fort and continue on, deep inside, they bury an unprecedented level of acute stress, anxiety and depression. Peer support groups have been posed as a possible coping behavior. This cross-sectional designed project was developed to assess the worth and feasibility of a virtual peer support group with a focus on healthcare provider wellness during a period of surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overwhelmed staff, technology/documentation changes and challenges, competing clinical demands, short-staffing and Zoom fatigue were identified as the limiting factors for this project’s completion within its given timeframe. These findings informed of current barriers, providing a basis for future program development to mitigate the impact of psychological distress among healthcare providers. Evolving literature on this topic supports recommendations for further study and action by individual health care providers, organizations and at the state and national levels.
Seclusion and restraint (SR) continue to be used in psychiatric settings when a patient is a harm to self or others despite growing concern and calls to eliminate the practice due to its harmful, potentially life-threatening effects on patients. The purpose of this evidence-based project was to assist a hospital in the southwestern United States decrease their seclusion and restraint rates among their adolescent patients. Trauma-informed care approaches have been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of SR in inpatient settings.
The nurses and behavioral health technicians (BHTs) received a two-hour trauma-informed care training in November of 2019. SR rates three months pre-training and post-training were compared. In the three months prior to the training, SR rates averaged 23.4 events per 1000 patient days. Comparatively, the three months after the training SR rates averaged 19.5 events per 1000 patient days. This shows a clinically significant decrease in SR rates after the TIC training. This evidence-based project (EBP) highlights the need to address this problem and gives an intervention option that can reduce harm for patients and address the needs of healthcare organizations seeking to improve patient care.