According to the textbook, nurses in various settings are adopting a research-based (or evidence-based) practice that incorporates research findings into their decisions and interactions with patients. Analyze the role nurses play in improving health care quality and safety through the use of evidence-based practice (EBP). How do you see this role being applied in your workplace? What internal stakeholder perspectives would you need to consider, including stakeholder support, in order to successfully implement an EBP project in your workplace?

Initial discussion question posts should be a minimum of 200 words and include at least two references cited using APA format. Responses to peers or faculty should be 100-150 words and include one reference. Refer to “RN-BSN Discussion Question Rubric” and “RN-BSN Participation Rubric,” located in Class Resources, to understand the expectations for initial discussion question posts and participation posts, respectively.

To be an advocate for Policy development at the Federal level, you must be actively engaged with legislative efforts. To do so, you will need to be aware of who your legislators are.

To determine who your legislators are, visit Plural’s Find Your Local Legislator webpageLinks to an external site.. (This site will list both your State and Federal officials.)

https://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

In your discussion post, address the following:

• In which state do you live?
• Who are your state legislators? Include both your state senator and your state representative.
• Who are your federal legislators? Include both your U.S. senator and U.S. representative. (You could have more than one for each.)

Then, visit Congress.govLinks to an external site. and choose one piece of pending federal legislation about which you feel passionate.

https://www.congress.gov/search?q=%7B%22source%22%3A%22all%22%7D

• What is the name of the pending legislation? Include both number and title.
• Where is it in the policy development process – is it heading to the House or heading to the Senate?
• Why are you passionate about this particular piece of pending legislation?
• Depending on whether it’s approaching the House or the Senate, which of your federal legislators would you contact if you wanted to advocate for this bill to become a law?

Creating a visually appealing medication guide

Is your clinical change project highly significant to nursing? Does the project encompass the core graduate nursing competencies of patient-centered care, social equity, cultural appropriateness, evidence-based practice, health promotion, and disease prevention? Why?

Please ensure that the reply includes more than 200 words of scholarly articles and that the plagiarism level remains below 20%.

Based on the multi-dimensional nature of patient symptoms, the Theory of Unpleasant Symptoms (TOUS) offers a comprehensive framework of strategies to evaluate patient symptoms. This is the interplay between symptoms, their effects on performance, and other consequences of failing due to those symptoms. In selecting patient symptoms for assessment based on TOUS, it is important to prioritize several key items to obtain an accurate and comprehensive evaluation of patients.

One of the most important things about TOUS is that symptoms are not one-dimensional but multi-dimensional, referring to intensity, duration, frequency, and distress. Any good assessment tool should be something other than just a tool to ascertain or quantify the presence and/or severity of a symptom. Instead, it should assess how such symptoms change over time and what impact they have on the total welfare of the patient. For instance, in patients suffering from chronic illnesses, including fatigue, cognitive impairment, emotional distress, and pain, an effective tool should capture not just pain levels but also all the occurring co-morbid symptoms (Srivastava & RM, 2021).

TOUS states that the symptoms are determined by physiological and psychological factors, as well as situational ones and considered factors that affect the severity and perceived symptoms. Physiological factors include the disease pathology, the medication side effects, or a genetic predisposing factor. Elements of a psychological nature, such as anxiety or depression, can accentuate the intensity of symptoms, which is even more distressing for the patient. Additionally, environmental and situational factors—such as access to healthcare, socioeconomic status, and social support—play a crucial role in symptom management (Moore, 2022). The assessment tool would be a complete picture of the patient’s condition only if questions incorporate these influencing factors.

An ideal assessment tool must assess, in addition to the symptoms, how the symptoms affect daily life. TOUS stresses that the symptoms have an impact on the physical, cognitive, and social functions. For instance, in an effort to assess cancer-related fatigue, tiredness should be quantified but also looked at in terms of its impact on mobility, work performance, and social interactions. Healthcare providers can tailor interventions to improve quality of life rather than just treating the symptoms of the individual by assessing how he is functioning as a whole (Moore, 2022).

The assessment tool should also be validated for reliability and sensitivity in many patient populations. If a timely clinical intervention can be made based on subtle changes over time in symptoms, then this tool should be useful. When the tool is evidence-based, point-scored, and rigorously tested, it provides a good application to practice.

Finally, an ideal assessment approach, under the heading of TOUS, should be comprehensive enough to assess symptom dimensions, influence factors, and functional outcomes, and it has to be reliable. Treatment strategies and outcomes are better when the effects of symptoms are approached holistically.

References

Moore, A. K. (2022). The holistic theory of unpleasant symptoms. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 40(2), 193-202. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08980101211031706

Srivastava, S. P., & RM, N. T. (2021). Insight into the theory of unpleasant symptoms. International Organization of Scientific Research Journal of Nursing and Health Science, 10(3), 23-26. https://www.researchgate.net/nsight_into_the_theory_of_unpleasant_symptoms/links/60a0a25192851cfdf3381647/Insight-into-the-theory-of-unpleasant-symptoms.pdf