Sample Admission Essay for Doctoral Degree in Nursing
My area of interest is “Advanced Clinical Practice”, in which I wish to focus on psychiatric mental health. The field deals with the provision of care to persons experiencing psychological distress and illness. Some of the conditions prominently featuring in this discipline are schizophrenia, paranoia, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and disorders on eating, mood and personality (Benjenk & Chen, 2018).
For attaining credible competency in this field, one should be trained to deliver psychological therapy, dispense psychiatric medication, and forge therapeutic alliances. This healthcare sector provides an array of services that are chiefly related to children and adolescent mental health services, community mental health services, psychiatric intensive care unit, and acute medical units.
In my identified topic, the potential clinical problem that I intend to focus on is the worsening trend of psychiatric patient readmissions in Alabama. Patients routinely face situations of multiple cases of hospitalization for the same problem. According to Morris et al. (2018), the risk-adjusted 30-day patient readmission rate for psychiatric conditions in Alabama stands at 23.1% against a national rate of 20%. If this trend persists, it is likely to cause havoc to the healthcare facilities offering mental health services in the state. Hence, steps to redeem the situation are urgently required to place the state’s facilities on par with the rest of the country.
During my professional practice as a nurse in various healthcare facilities situated in Alabama, I have noticed that this problem is quite prevalent. The state no longer has long-term facilities for patients with mental afflictions. For instance, the hospital I work for has referred more than 150 patients to facilities located in other states in the past year. The reason for such referrals is that the hospital is incapable of handling advanced psychological conditions effectively. Even for outpatient services, the waiting hours endured by the patients are longer than the nation-wide average. Hence, owing to the high readmission rates and the resulting escalation in the number of cases that the physicians need to tackle, the quality of care offered to the mentally challenged patients has dwindled in the state.
The topic is of prime relevance to the society, especially to the community in Alabama, because the state ranks 36th out of the 51 states in the quality of mental health services. Concerning its capacity to offer healthcare assistance to mentally ill patients, Alabama occupies the 46th position. Further exploration of statistics reveals that while 4.1% of the population in Alabama suffers from mental health issues, only 43.5% of the affected individuals receive treatment (“Mental Health Resources in Alabama”, 2018). Patient readmissions worsen the situation because such a scenario prevailing in the state works against its national ranking. As more patients undergo readmissions in Alabama hospitals, the perceived quality of care tends to decline.
The worrying issue of readmission rates among the mentally ill patients in Alabama is worthy of investigation in evidence-based practice. Several causal variables, such as inadequacy of facilities, misdiagnoses by physicians, negligence on the part of the patients, and insufficient support from families, could be attributed to this occurrence. In-depth research would reveal which of these variables explain the situation on the ground. The problem of mental health readmissions is relevant to the role of a DNP nurse as it seeks solutions to genuine issues affecting the healthcare industry. Moreover, this issue is of immense interest to any nursing student or professional practitioner. Deliberating on this topic would help to ascertain the role of DNP nurses in providing evidence-based solutions to occupational challenges existing in the field. Are you looking to pay someone to have your application paper written online by experts? You can contact WriteMyPaperHub and send your write my admission essay request immediately.
References
Benjenk, I., & Chen, J. (2018). "Effective mental health interventions to reduce hospital readmission rates: a systematic review." Journal of Hospital Management and Health Policy, 2(1), 22-48.
Morris, D. W., Ghose, S., Williams, E., Brown, K., & Khan, F. (2018). "Evaluating psychiatric readmissions in the emergency department of a large public hospital." Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 14(1), 671.
Mental health resources in Alabama. (2019, Jan 3). Retrieved from https://www.rtor.org/mental-health-resources-in-alabama/
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