Date of Scholarly Project Submission

5-2018

Degree Type

Scholarly Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

Faculty Chairperson

Anne Stein

Second Committee Member

Melissa Romero

Third Committee Member

Terry Durley

Abstract

The rising prevalence of depression is straining the skeletal mental health systems in rural communities, resulting in a majority of patients receiving management for their depression solely by their primary care providers. However, providers need to be empowered with evidence-based resources to provide adequate care beyond pharmacotherapy exclusively. Bibliotherapy, or the prescription of books for the treatment of disease, is readily used by psychologists but less incorporated into the traditional medical model of patient care. This small pilot study provided primary care providers in a rural area complimentary copies of the self-help text Feeling Good (Burns, 2009) to incorporate into their care of mild to moderately depressed patients as they saw fit. Texts were provided with brief education. This scholarly project evaluated the self-reported prescribing practices and utilized the Evidence-based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS) tool developed by Gregory Aarons. There was no correlation found in EBPAS pre intervention scores and use of bibliotherapy, or the use of bibliotherapy and post intervention EBPAS scores. Sex, age range, years in practice, educational background, and number of depressed patients/month have the largest effect on EBPAS scores and bibliotherapy use. Findings were limited due to small sample size. Future studies with a larger sample size can yield more robust results of statistical significance that can better elucidate how provider attitudes influence the adoption of bibliotherapy.

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