Degree Name
Nursing Practice, DNP
Publication Date
8-3-2026
First Advisor
Lisa Drake
Second Advisor
Veronica Arredondo
Abstract
Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide, yet inconsistent use of evidence-based assessment and treatment strategies contributes to gaps in the quality of psychiatric care. A needs assessment at a community outpatient psychiatric clinic identified inconsistent documentation of measurement-based care (MBC), shared decision-making (SDM), and patient education during depression treatment. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate whether implementation of MBC and SDM improved depression treatment documentation among psychiatric providers over a 4-week period. Guided by Lewin’s Change Theory and implemented using the Iowa Model of Evidence-Based Practice as the implementation framework, this quantitative one-group pretest-posttest project included two psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners and retrospective review of 30 pre-intervention and 30 post-intervention patient records. The intervention included provider education, standardized use of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), SDM documentation prompts, patient education resources, and audit with feedback. Data were collected using a standardized chart audit tool and analyzed using descriptive statistics and two-proportion z tests. PHQ-9 documentation improved from 53.3% (8/15) to 93.3% (14/15) (z = -2.76, p = .006), and SDM documentation increased from 53.3% (8/15) to 100% (15/15) (z = -3.65, p < .001). These findings demonstrate that integrating structured evidence-based practices into routine outpatient psychiatric care improved documentation consistency and supported patient-centered depression management. Sustained implementation of MBC and SDM may improve the quality of depression care in outpatient psychiatric practice.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Benoit, Jillian K., "Quality Improvement Project: Advancing Personalized Depression Care in Outpatient Psychiatry" (2026). Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects. 366.
https://arch.astate.edu/dnp-projects/366
