Analysis Nurse Practice Problem

[jrodri]

I'm having trouble choosing a topic for my research class. Below are the instructions :

"Choose a practice problem that is within the scope of advanced practice nursing and fits with the specialization of the program in which you are currently enrolled. Some examples include adherence to prescribed therapies, self-management of chronic disease, pain management, providing palliative care, health literacy, promoting health behavior, impediments in staff knowledge or organizational processes/health care delivery systems that affect patient care) and narrowing the topic further for a specific population of interest (e.g., chronic disease self-management in adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes).

My track is leadership and management. I wanted to do something like Nurse manager's role in communication and how it affects the performance of staff.

How can I narrow this down? When I asked my instructor, I was told I needed to narrow down the topic to a specific nurse knowledge deficit and a specific patient care and to focus on a specific population.

[CCU BSN RN]

That's tough, I assume that the next step after you pick a practice problem is that you need to either conduct or review research, and then develop and/or implement a plan to resolve the issue.

Options for narrowing:

1. pick a managerial style and discuss how that style affects staff. (e.g. Laissez-fair management and affect on staff performance)

Or, since you need a specific RN knowledge deficit:

2. Staff RN perceptions of leadership's role

Give us a bit more info about what the assignment is going to be after you choose a problem. I don't want to give you something that would be impossible to find research articles about, for example, if this is to turn into a thesis paper.

[jrodri]

[h=2]Guidelines[/h]This paper will be the foundation for the first part of your final paper.

[h=3]Choose a Practice Problem[/h]

• Choose a practice problem that is within the scope of advanced practice nursing and fits with the specialization of the program in which you are currently enrolled. Some examples include adherence to prescribed therapies, self-management of chronic disease, pain management, providing palliative care, health literacy, promoting health behavior, impediments in staff knowledge or organizational processes/health care delivery systems that affect patient care) and narrowing the topic further for a specific population of interest (e.g., chronic disease self-management in adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes).
  

[h=3]Components of the Paper[/h][h=4]Abstract[/h]Appears first in the paper, but should be written last.

Should be an overview of the content of the paper with the same subheadings as the body of the paper (Background, Problem Statement, Significance, Summary).

Often 1-2 sentences for each section of the paper will suffice.

[h=4]Background[/h]Describe a nursing practice problem. Provide details about the nature of the problem and why it is a problem. Review the literature on your topic and use the literature and citations to support your statements.

[h=4]Problem Statement[/h]State the problem in one or two succinct sentences (e.g., Adolescent mothers are slow to bond with their newborn infants. Lack of adherence to prescribed health regimens leads to preventable readmissions for heart failure patients; Advanced practice nurses working in pediatric primary care settings lack the skills to counsel families about childhood obesity). The problem statement should follow logically and consistently from the material in the Background Section.

[h=4]Significance[/h]Provide information (and cite the sources of the information) that justifies the importance of the problem.

How many people have this problem?

• Who is affected by this problem?
  
• What are the health and quality of life consequences of this problem?
  
• What is the cost of this problem?
  
• What would be the impact of resolving or lessening the problem? (For example, improving heart failure patients' adherence would save health care dollars, improve patients' quality of life, and increase patient morale.)
  

[h=4] Summary and Conclusions[/h][COLOR=#2d3b45]A brief recapping of the main points of the paper. [/COLOR]

It's choosing the problem that's I'm having difficulty with.

[CCU BSN RN]

Okay, so it needs to be a problem that has already been researched and documented, but there does not need to be an evidence-based solution and you don't need to provide one or actually DO any first person research. Cool.

Honestly in choosing a topic, I'd search CINAHL or EBSCO for articles pertaining to your original proposed topic of " Nurse manager's role in communication and how it affects the performance of staff. "

Choosing the research before narrowing the topic has twofold benefits. It prevents you from choosing a topic so narrow that you can't find research, and you've already got your articles picked out at the same time as your topic, so less to do later.

[nutella, MSN, RN]

I encountered such a problem and found it not uncommon.

Practice problem nurse lack of knowledge about palliative care as it applies to end-of-life care in the acute hospital setting.

Situation: Nurses lack the specific knowledge about palliative care to provide effective care at the end-of-life to patient in the acute care setting.

Study of Nurses’ Knowledge about Palliative Care: A Quantitative Cross-sectional Survey

You can narrow the population down even further (which makes the home work also easier...) to patient who elect a careplan that focuses 100% on comfort - comfort measures only with endstage CHF and main symptoms shortness of breath (which also results in anxiety) and other related symptoms.

Problem is that nurses have not enough knowledge about how to care for patients at this stage in life or knowledge does not translate into clinical practice.

Goals would be an intervention that helps the nurse to increase knowledge and helps to translate knowledge into clinical practice.

There is information available about all aspects of end-of-life care, methods of increasing knowledge and quality improvement clinical practice. You could look at other aspects as well.

Or problem re-admission of patients with COPD stage 4 or CHF or whatever you would like to pick and focus on process improvement.

Or process improvement discharge planning for patients with metastatic disease and estimated life expectancy of 6 months or less (the new "thing" is serious illness conversations to plan care that aligns with the patient preferences and goals).

There are so many clinical practice problems...

Good luck!