Introduction
When addressing a clinical issue, it is essential to formulate a certain question that will cover all the required areas. Thus, the study will seek to respond to a question that is created using recommendations provided by Bermudez (2021), Gallagher Ford and Melnyk (2019), and the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine (n.d.). Thus, the PICOT question is the following: In adult clients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in inpatient facilities (P), how does dietary education (I) compared with standard care (C) affect blood pressure and patient outcomes (O) within a month during and three months after the intervention (T)?
PICOT Problem
The PICOT problem addressed in this paper is a lack of dietary awareness among patients with cardiovascular conditions. According to researchers, eating patterns and preferences play a significant role in the well-being and health of individuals, especially those with CVDs (Juul et al., 2021). As noticed by Kim et al. (2019), healthy food choices can not only reduce the risk of heart disease but also help people with these conditions manage them properly, which serves as a basis for evidence-based nursing intervention. Unfortunately, not all individuals with CVDs are aware that they have to eat nutritious and well-balanced meals, which leads to the deterioration of their state and does not allow patient care to be effective in the long term (Ardoin et al., 2022; Juul et al., 2021). In different rehabilitation facilities, medical workers do their best to improve the outcomes of patients with these conditions, but after the latter leave the clinical setting, they return to their unhealthy eating patterns due to lacking knowledge. Therefore, the problem requires some changes to be implemented in the nursing practice, expanding the role of nurses as educators.
Nursing Intervention
The proposed nursing intervention is educating patients with CVDs about the need to adhere to healthy and nutritious food choices. Nurses will raise these clients’ awareness about the foods that increase or decrease the risk of heart disease and help them create a well-balanced menu that would be tasty and healthy (Shi et al., 2023). According to Ardoin et al. (2022) and Świątkiewicz et al. (2021), dietary education is proven to improve patient outcomes, making them more informed and responsible. To compare, patients not receiving this intervention fail to maintain the achieved health-improvement results, as they return to adverse eating habits after getting home from the inpatient setting (Ardoin et al., 2022). This intervention will last for a month, and after that, the participant’s health will be monitored for three months to determine whether there are improvements, as compared with the control group not receiving diet training.
Clinical Problem and Patient Outcome
Overall, the clinical problem is that patients with CVDs are not educated about the effects that food choices have on their health. This worsens patient outcomes and increases hospital stays, requiring a proper nursing intervention. When an effective training program is offered to clients, their awareness and lifestyle preferences are expected to be enhanced. Patients with cardiovascular conditions will have lower blood pressure, be more responsible for their dieting, and manage their condition better.
Conclusion
To conclude, cardiovascular diseases are among medical conditions that can be managed through careful dietary planning. Unfortunately, many patients with CVDs are unaware of the role of food in their well-being. Unhealthy eating choices decrease patient outcomes, as after being left home from inpatient facilities, these individuals return to their ordinary dietary patterns. A proposed nursing intervention is educating CVD patients about the need to have well-balanced and nutritious meals to be healthy and reduce the risks of heart issues.
References
Ardoin, T. W., Hamer, D., Mason, N., Reine, A., Barleycorn, L., Francis, D., & Johnson, A. (2022). Effectiveness of a patient-centered dietary educational intervention. The Ochsner Journal, 22(2), 113–128. Web.
Bermudez, N. (2021). Formulating well-written clinical practice questions and research questions. Nursing & Health Sciences Research Journal, 4(1), 70-82. Web.
Center for Evidence-Based Medicine. (n.d.). Asking focused questions. Web.
Gallagher F. L., & Melnyk, B. M. (2019). The underappreciated and misunderstood PICOT question: A critical step in the EBP process. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 16(6), 422–423. Web.
Juul, F., Vaidean, G., Lin, Y., Deierlein, A. L., & Parekh, N. (2021). Ultra-processed foods and incident cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Offspring Study. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 77(12), 1520-1531. Web.
Kim, H., Caulfield, L. E., Garcia‐Larsen, V., Steffen, L. M., Coresh, J., & Rebholz, C. M. (2019). Plant‐based diets are associated with a lower risk of incident cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular disease mortality, and all‐cause mortality in a general population of middle‐aged adults. Journal of the American Heart Association, 8(16). Web.
Shi, W., Ghisi, G. L., Zhang, L., Hyun, K., Pakosh, M., & Gallagher, R. (2023). Systematic review, meta‐analysis and meta‐regression to determine the effects of patient education on health behaviour change in adults diagnosed with coronary heart disease. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 32(15-16), 5300-5327. Web.
Świątkiewicz, I., Di Somma, S., De Fazio, L., Mazzilli, V., & Taub, P. R. (2021). Effectiveness of intensive cardiac rehabilitation in high-risk patients with cardiovascular disease in real-world practice. Nutrients, 13(11). Web.