Date of Conferral

8-7-2025

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

School

Nursing

Advisor

Maria Revell

Abstract

This staff education project focused on the practice problem of a knowledge deficit of licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) related to evidence-based medication adherence strategies for psychiatric patients. The practice-focused question addressed how effective an education would be for improving medication adherence knowledge, confidence, and practice readiness among LVNs in an outpatient psychiatric clinic. It is important to address this practice gap because insufficient knowledge of medication adherence could limit LVNs’ ability to engage patients and foster higher medication adherence. Participants were nine LVNs working in an outpatient psychiatric facility who attended face-to-face education sessions. LVNs completed a pretest, followed by education sessions, and then a posttest and educational questionnaire. I performed descriptive analyses using Excel. The participants’ mean pretest knowledge score was 75.16%, while the posttest score was 91.50% improved by a mean 21.88 percentage points. The pretest and posttest confidence scores also substantially improved from 3.3 to 4.4 across the seven confidence Likert-scale items related to medication adherence. These results showed that the LVN training workshop on evidence-based medication adherence strategies was significantly effective in improving LVNs’ knowledge as well as confidence and practice readiness. Refresher courses and ongoing monitoring are recommended to sustain this project’s impact. This project has significant implications for social change because it not only enhances staff knowledge and competencies but also improves patients’ medication adherence rates. This project also fosters diversity, inclusion, and equity because it included LVNs of different races, gender, and different experience levels, promoting equity in staff development programs.

Download

Included in

Nursing Commons

Share

 
COinS