Promoting Annual Depression Screening in a Federally Qualified Healthcare Center

According to the World Health Organization, depression affects about 350 million people worldwide. In 2014, only 50% of the adult patients were screened for depression in the community-based Federally Qualified Healthcare Center (FQHC) for which this doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) project was developed. In an effort to meet the 100% benchmark set nationally for the screening of adult patients in the primary care settings, the FQHC\u27s quality improvement team now requires that 80% of adult patients in the clinic be screened for depression. Framed within the Iowa model of evidence-based practice, the purposes of this project were to: (a) identify an evidence-based protocol and clinical guidelines to direct the use of the Patient Health Questionnaires (PHQ)-2 and PHQ-9 depression screening tools currently available for staff, and (b) develop an educational curriculum for the staff about depression, the use of the protocol, and clinical guidelines for the tools. Two DNP educators served as content experts to evaluate the curriculum plan using a dichotomous nine-item format that revealed that the content met the objectives of the curriculum. The experts also conducted content validation of each of the 15-pretest/posttest items using a Likert scale ranging from 1(not relevant) to 4 (highly relevant). A content validation index of 1.00 showed that the experts strongly agreed that the items reflected the content of the curriculum. Recommendations were made for item construction of the pretest/posttest. The project speaks to social change through promotion of the PHQ-2 and PHQ-9 depression screening tools to facilitate appropriate diagnosis and treatment, thus promoting the health of clients, families, and the community