NURSFPX6026 Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy

 

The Current State of Quality of Care for Youths with PTSD

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition resulting from a terrifying life event. PTSD is most prevalent among teens and young adults between the ages of 18-24, with the prevalence rates being higher among the younger population (Yuan et al., 2021). Teens and young adults with PTSD are reluctant to seek help in mental healthcare institutions. They fail to seek health due to a lack of information and stigmatization of PTSD. There are inadequate healthcare professionals that are trained and well versed in trauma-related management.

The Necessity of Health Policy Development for Youths with PTSD

There are current policies dealing with the treatment of PTSD in children and youths. Most policies are concerned with mental health education and awareness-raising of PTSD and other mental health issues. However, the proposed policy aims at improving the accessibility of quality and cost-effective mental health care. According to Simon et al. (2019), effective PTSD treatment interventions such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) are expensive and not covered by most national health services and health insurance, thus excluding patients from seeking help.

Improving the Quality and Outcome of Care in Youths with PTSD

Adopting a policy that enhances accessibility and affordability of mental health and PTSD care would improve the quality and outcome of care for youths with PTSD. Some teens and young adults shy away from seeking mental health care due to the high cost. Ensuring mental health is included in the most affordable health insurance covers will encourage youths with PTSD to seek help in the healthcare institutions close to them. Prioritizing teens and young adults in the mental health departments in all healthcare institutions since they are the most affected population would help encourage help-seeking behavior, thus promoting positive outcomes.

Furthermore, Shi et al. (2020) established that the major barrier to care delivery for youths with PTSD is misconceptions about the disorder and stigmatization; the policy mandates the creation of community groups to create awareness. The community groups would have counselors who are always accessible to talk to the youths and thus help in preventing mental health issues. Forming an interprofessional team to assist the teens and young adults with PTSD in all levels of health promotion would also improve the quality and outcome of care.

Policy Developments in Other Care Settings with regard to PTSD and the Youths

Curbing the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder crisis among the youths would take not only the development of policies in the healthcare institutions but also in other care settings. Care settings such as rehabilitation and counseling facilities would also play a huge role in developing policies to help deal with the crisis. Mental psychiatrists and counselors working in these care settings would engage in research-based and evidence-based practices that would inform the development of policies to help face the crisis. However, it is worth noting that policy development in other care settings might face challenges such as inadequate funding to conduct research.

How the Policy Will Support Achievement of Desired Outcomes

The developed policy recommends collaborating with an interprofessional team to ensure effective and efficient implementation. The collaboration of psychiatric physicians, psychiatric nurses, counselors, therapists, and social workers, would help achieve the desired outcomes for teens and young adults with PTSD. The social workers would help encourage youths in the community to seek help. The health professionals would ensure the quality of care provided to youths with PTSD is desired through screenings and follow-ups.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

References

Shi, W., Shen, Z., Wang, S., & Hall, B. J. (2020). Barriers to professional mental health help-seeking among Chinese adults: a systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 442. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00442

Simon, N., McGillivray, L., Roberts, N. P., Barawi, K., Lewis, C. E., & Bisson, J. I. (2019). Acceptability of internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (i-CBT) for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): a systematic review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 10(1), 1646092. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008198.2019.1646092

Yuan, K., Gong, Y. M., Liu, L., Sun, Y. K., Tian, S. S., Wang, Y. J., … & Lu, L. (2021). Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder after infectious disease pandemics in the twenty-first century, including COVID-19: a meta-analysis and systematic review. Molecular Psychiatry, 26(9), 4982-4998. https://doi.or/10.1038/s41380-021-01036-x

 

NURSFPX6026 Assessment 3

The Focus will be Mental Health (PTSD if possible) utilizing 3 sources

Write a letter to the editor of an academic or professional journal. The length and format of the letter is dictated by your choice of journal.

Introduction

Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.

Advocating for new policies is an important aspect of the master’s-prepared nurse. For new policies to be compelling they need to be supported by evidence. Supporting data can be used to illustrate why new policies and interventions are needed to help address a specific health issue. Compelling data can help sway the stakeholders and gain support for your policy.

Another aspect of advocacy is disseminating new policies and interventions outside of the immediate care environment. This can be done by reaching out to professional organizations as well as academic and professional journals. A letter to the editor is one strategy for disseminating information to a wider audience, and to potentially enlist support throughout the wider professional community.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Preparations

As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment. You may use the Locating Letter Submission Guidelines for Journals library guide for additional assistance.

• Looking at your health care issue from a prevention standpoint, what are the relevant levels of prevention?

• • What would be the benefits and challenges of applying a specific level of prevention to your chosen issue and population?
  • How might one or more approaches to prevention improve the care and outcomes?

• • • How could your policy be leveraged, or revised, to support the relevant levels of prevention?
• What are relevant strategies that you could use to help advocate for the policy you are proposing?

• • How could these strategies help you advocate for your policy proposal?
  • How does evidence from the literature support the benefits of your proposed policy?

• • • How does citing evidence help lend credibility to your advocacy?
• What academic or professional journal would be the best forum to advocate for your policy?

• • Why is your chosen journal an appropriate forum?
  • Which advocacy strategies would be most effective in this forum?
  • How will you craft your message to best appeal to the likely audience of your chosen journal?

Assessment 3 will build upon the work you have done for your previous two assessments. For this assessment, you will be writing a letter to the editor of an academic or professional journal as a means to advocate for adoption or development of policies that will improve the quality of care and outcomes around your chosen health care issue and vulnerable population. Refer to the resource listed below.

• Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy [DOC].

Scenario

Throughout this course, you have focused on a specific health issue occurring within a specific population. You researched position papers regarding this health concern, and you developed a health policy proposal to positively impact the health of the affected individuals. It is now time to reach a greater audience regarding your policy proposal.

Instructions

Develop a letter to the editor of a peer-reviewed academic or professional nursing journal based on the policy proposal that you created for Assessment 2. Choose from one of the journals on the Ultimate List of Nursing Journals and go to that journal’s Web site to find out the requirements for submitting a letter to the editor, such as format requirements, topics, and word counts. Make sure you select a nursing journal that covers the topic about which you are going to write. If you want to use another journal that is not on this list, please make sure the journal does address health care, because this is the purpose of the assessment.

The goal of your letter is to be informative about the policy that you developed for Assessment 2, while also being persuasive about the need for and benefit of similar policies in other health care settings. The bullet points below correspond to the grading criteria in the scoring guide. Be sure that your submission addresses all of them. You may also want to read the Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide and Guiding Questions: Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy [DOC] document to better understand how each grading criterion will be assessed.

• Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.

• • Look back to the data or scenario you used in Assessment 1 to address this criterion.
• Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
• Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
• Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
• Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
• Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
• Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using current APA style (or the journal’s preferred style).

Example Assessment: You may use the assessment example, linked in the Assessment Example section of the Resources, to give you an idea of what a Proficient or higher rating on the scoring guide would look like.

Additional Requirements

The submission requirements for your editorial will depend on the journal you choose. To find out the requirements, go to the journal’s Web site. There should be a section regarding submissions that will address how to format letters to the editor, and whether there is a word count limit (there usually is a limit).

• If the journal does not have submission guidelines for the number of resources required, use 3-5 sources.
• To be sure that your instructor knows the submission and formatting requirements for your letter, include the journal’s guidelines on a separate page at the end of the document you submit for this assessment.

Competencies Measured

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:

• Competency 1: Design evidence-based advanced nursing care for achieving high-quality population outcomes.

• • Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
  • Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.
• Competency 2: Evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of interprofessional interventions in achieving desired population health outcomes.

• • Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.
• Competency 3: Analyze population health outcomes in terms of their implications for health policy advocacy.

• • Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.
  • Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.
• Competency 4: Communicate effectively with diverse audiences, in an appropriate form and style, consistent with organizational, professional, and scholarly standards.

• • Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
  • Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references using APA style.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

Letter to the Editor: Population Health Policy Advocacy Scoring Guide

CRITERIA	NON-PERFORMANCE	BASIC	PROFICIENT	DISTINGUISHED
Evaluate the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Does not explain the current state of the quality of care and outcomes.	Explains the current state of the quality of care and outcomes, but the link to the specific issue in a target population is unclear.	Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Evaluates the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Identifies knowledge gaps, unknowns, missing information, unanswered questions, or areas of uncertainty (where further information could improve the evaluation).
Analyze how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.	Does not explain how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.	Explains how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes necessitates health policy development and advocacy, but the link to a specific issue in a target population is unclear.	Analyzes how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy.	Analyzes how the current state of the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population necessitates health policy development and advocacy. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity.
Justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Does not justify why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Provides a weak or flawed justification for why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population.	Justifies why a developed policy will be vital in improving the quality of care and outcomes for a specific issue in a target population. Impartially considers other perspectives.
Advocate for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.	Does not explain how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.	Explains how a policy could be developed in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population, but does not truly advocate or call other to action with regard to developing policy.	Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population.	Advocates for policy development in other care settings with regard to a specific issue in a target population. Acknowledges potential challenges to policy development.
Analyze the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.	Does not explain how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.	Explains how interprofessional strategies can support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population, but does not fully relate this to the developed policy.	Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population.	Analyzes the ways in which interprofessional aspects of a developed policy will support efficient and effective achievement of desired outcomes for the target population. Identifies areas of ambiguity or uncertainty where additional information could help to improve clarity.
Communicate in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.	Does not communicate in a way that is clear or persuasive.	Communicates in a professional manner, but the approach is somewhat unclear or is not very persuasive. There are mechanical writing errors that reduce the effectiveness of communication.	Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.	Communicates in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content clearly and logically with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Identifies specific strategies or approaches used to ensure clear communication.
Integrate relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references.	Does not integrate relevant sources to support assertions; does not correctly format citations and references.	Sources lack relevance or are poorly integrated, or citations or references are incorrectly formatted.	Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references.	Integrates relevant sources to support assertions, correctly formatting citations and references. Citations are free from all errors.