PICOT Paper: Evidence-Based Practice Project
PICOT Paper: Evidence-Based Practice Project
Engaging in evidence-based practice (EBP) projects is among the most practical interventions for addressing health problems. Nurses use nursing interventions founded on research to enhance health outcomes. This paper describes the population, intervention, and expected outcome. It also explains the implementation time and the application of aqnursing science, social determinants of health, and epidemiologic, genomic, and genetic data in supporting the health management of children with obesity.
The wellness of a population’s health using improved patient safety protocols implores healthcare workers (HCWs) especially nurses, to develop evidence-based practice interventions to reduce and prevent occurrence of adverse events like hospital acquired infections (HAIs) and medication administration errors (MAEs) among others. These adverse events lead to poor patient outcomes, increase the overall cost of care and disease burden, and lowers the quality of care delivered by healthcare professionals. Hospital acquired infections are some of the leading healthcare concerns that affect patient safety and quality of care. Many patients suffer from these infections that result into lengthened stays in hospitals, increased cost of care, and in extreme circumstances death.
Population’s Demographics and Health Concerns
The focus population for the EBP project is children usually categorized as preschool-aged children (2-5 years) and school-aged children (6-11 years). Preschool-aged children are usually highly dependent on parents’ choices, including nutritional health, hobbies, and general lifestyle. As they move from pre-
school to school age, children become somewhat dependent on some choices. They start choosing hobbies and establish relationships that influence their daily habits.
Childhood obesity is a serious health concern in the United States whose prevalence is increasing and putting children at risk of poor health. Skinner et al. (2018) found that childhood obesity’s prevalence is still high in the US since 1 in every 5 children has obesity. As the prevalence of obesity increases, children are more exposed to immediate and long term risks of obesity. Vulnerability to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer is high in children with obesity (Lindberg et al., 2020). Overall, the quality of health declines and children are not productive as desired.
As the populace, government, and health care providers intensify measures to fight obesity, it is disappointing to experience a proportional risk in risk factors. According to Tester et al. (2018), lifestyle changes characterized by low physical activity are continuously exposing children to obesity. Fast foods’ consumption is another risk factor. Pearson et al. (2020) suggested that sedentary living characterized by too much screen time must be addressed to reduce childhood’s obesity prevalence. Gaming, watching television for extended periods, and social interaction through mobile phones can be blamed for the reduced physical activity among children. Regulation is necessary as parents, educators, and health care providers collaborate to encourage physical activity at homes, schools, and communities.
Evidence-Based Intervention
As proposed in the PICOT (Appendix 1), the identified intervention is educating parents and children about the importance of limiting screen time and increasing physical activity. Obesity risk is increased by increased screen time because it is associated with
excessive energy intake and insufficient physical activity (Schwarzfischer et al., 2020). It is expected that educating parents and children will result in positive behavior changes because parents will regulate their children and children will avoid spending too much time on screens because they will understand the consequences. The intervention incorporates health policies and goals that support health equity for children because it focuses on ensuring that children reach their full health potential. When disadvantaged groups are protected from health disparities and assisted in achieving a decent standard of living, health equity is achieved. Preventing childhood obesity is a critical step t