When providing care, nurses are guided by certain recommendations and regulations, as well as their personal philosophy. I use the essentials of doctoral education for advanced nursing practice and AONE competencies to guide my professional life. These standards are specifically helpful inpatient training, which is one of the most important elements of nursing practice. Nurses should provide patients with detailed information regarding their health conditions, possible outcomes, treatment, available resources, effective treatment and prevention, as well as other aspects.
The scientific underpinning for practice is one of the DNP essentials I employed when teaching pregnant women to refrain from the use of marijuana or other illicit drugs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Holland et al. (2016) state that nursing practitioners and other healthcare professionals tend to focus on some legal issues related to marijuana use. I always talk about substance use with pregnant women.
One of my most recent training experiences was associated with the use of specific scientific evidence, as well as the use of such competencies as leadership skills and relationship building. A patient disclosed her occasional use of marijuana and stressed that it was harmless to her or her baby’s health. I provided specific data regarding potential health outcomes and emphasized the need to refrain from the use of any illicit drugs, including marijuana. I encouraged the patient to discuss the issue with her partner and friends who also used marijuana, so the patient later reported that she was committed to becoming more health-oriented.
My routine provision of training regarding safe sleep in infants resulted in certain changes in our facility. When training patients on safe sleep practices and observing the way other nurses address the issue, I realized that my colleagues do not pay sufficient attention to the matter. At that, interventions aimed at raising women’s awareness on the matter have proved to be effective (Salm Ward, & Balfour, 2015). I decided to change the situation in our facility and encouraged nurses to discuss the need to provide this kind of training. During regular meetings, we shared opinions and agreed to develop some guidelines for our patients.
We created a team that started working on the project. In this case, I incorporated such DNP essentials as Systems Thinking and interprofessional collaboration for improving patient outcomes. I also utilized almost all AONE competencies (excluding business skills) in this case.
I also employed all of these AONE competencies when training patients regarding postpartum depression and strategies to address it. Postpartum depression is a common health condition that affects up to 13% of women in the USA (Stewart & Vigod, 2016). When providing training to patients, I adhered to such DNP essential as the use of scientific underpinning for practice. Various screening and treatment methods have proved to be efficient (O’Connor, Rossom, Henninger, Groom, & Burda, 2016). I provide data concerning these methods and encourage patients to join numerous support groups that exist in our neighborhood and in the digital community.
In conclusion, it is necessary to note that patient training is one of the areas where DNP essentials and AONE competencies serve as valuable milestones. I try to use the most recent information and motivate patients to continue searching for data regarding some health issues. I also pay much attention to communication and relationship building as my patients are often vulnerable due to the emotional, and other kinds of, load they have to endure.
References
Holland, C. L., Rubio, D., Rodriguez, K. L., Kraemer, K. L., Day, N., Arnold, R. M., & Chang, J. C. (2016). Obstetric health care providersʼ counseling responses to pregnant patient disclosures of marijuana use. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 127(4), 681-687. Web.
O’Connor, E., Rossom, R. C., Henninger, M., Groom, H. C., & Burda, B. U. (2016). Primary care screening for and treatment of depression in pregnant and postpartum women. JAMA, 315(4), 388. Web.
Salm Ward, T. C., & Balfour, G. M. (2015). Infant safe sleep interventions, 1990–2015: A review. Journal of Community Health, 41(1), 180-196. Web.
Stewart, D. E., & Vigod, S. (2016). Postpartum depression. New England Journal of Medicine, 375(22), 2177-2186. Web.