Date of Conferral
6-5-2025
Date of Award
June 2025
Degree
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
School
Nursing
Advisor
Brenda Kulhanek
Abstract
This DNP project aimed to enhance the quality of care by improving healthcare providers’ knowledge and fostering confidence in the utilization of screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT). At the practice site, patients were not screened for substance use due to the lack of provider knowledge on evidence-based screening tools. The practice-focused question for this project was, Among healthcare providers in outpatient mental health clinics, does education on the use of the SBIRT screening tool increase their knowledge and skill after educational intervention? The project used a sample of 12 healthcare professionals, including four mental health practitioners and eight nurses. The implementation processes entailed the evidence-based practice change model that incorporated the SBIRT framework, organization readiness assessment, stakeholder analysis, and SWOT analysis. The results of the pretest-posttest descriptive analysis indicated an average SBIRT knowledge score increase of 42.18 percentage points after the staff education intervention. The Attitude score also increased by 16.92 percentage points, while the Confidence dimension improved by 19.72 percentage points. The project was successful and will address the identified gap since the findings offer noteworthy insights into how structured staff training on SBIRT can reinforce workforce capabilities and empower their effectiveness within outpatient mental health settings. The training was a practical and effective approach for equipping mental health practitioners with the necessary skills to screen, assess, and intervene appropriately.
Recommended Citation
Okwudiogor, Kelvin, "Staff Education on Substance Use Screening in an Outpatient Mental Health Clinic" (2025). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 17920.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/17920
