Improving Suicide Risk Assessment Through Educational Program Implementation

Background: Unsustainable behavioral health education focused on comprehensive suicide risk assessment performance contributes to decreased registered nurses’ perceived self-efficacy in assessing and caring for suicidal patients. Purpose: To educate medical-surgical and progressive care registered nurses in assessing patients for suicide risk factors and warning signs comprehensively. Design Method: A quasi-experimental designed quality improvement project with evidence-based suicide educational program implementation. Project results yielded a 56.7% increase in registered nurses’ perceived self-efficacy in assessing and caring for suicidal patients. Future DNP work will focus on sampling a larger population (N) to decrease opportunities for the skewness of project results and statistical significance. Conclusion: Addressing the need for comprehensive suicide risk assessment education is the key to enhancing registered nurse performance in achieving high- quality, holistic suicide patient care outcomes. Implications for Nursing: Sustainment of DNP scholarly project results will shape future nursing practice, guided by continuous monitoring of quality improvement indicators and initiatives, including oversight and support from DNP organizational stakeholders. Keywords: nursing, suicide, risk, assessment, self-efficac