Nursing Assignment | College Homework Help

For this week’s discussion board, I was able to use ProQuest in the Walden Library to search for a peer reviewed articles for the assignment. My area of interest and focus is mental health.  ProQuest in the Walden Library is accessible to my peers enrolled in the university and I do recommend it for them but not accessible for my colleagues.  I would not be able to recommend using ProQuest to help my professional colleagues gain more information about mental health practice and how it affects the nurse practitioner’s role. Some of the difficulties that I faced when searching ProQuest in the Walden Library database is the use of keywords.  Often times I find that when I search general keywords, I have an overwhelming amount of results that not always meet the criteria of what I am looking for. For example, when searching through ProQuest I noticed that the keywords are being highlighted not only in the titles but in some of the literature even if the topic of the article is not necessarily what I am looking for.

With the articles that I am able to find such as, “Meeting The Needs of People with Mental Illness” (Ramirez, 2016), discusses how the expansion of access healthcare for individuals with mental health illnesses came about. It highlights how people with mental health illness is a significant public health issue (Ramirez, 2016).  It also discusses the acts that allowed for the expansion and how it impacted the need for more PMHNP’s.  Unfortunately, I have learned that the scope of practice for the PMHNP is limited due to regulatory barriers which explains in part the shortage of specialty advance practice nurses (Ramirez, 2016).  The PMHNP was just offered exams to certify and allow the receipt of credentials in 1999 per the ANCC (Ramirez, 2016).  To say that this is a new area with a desperate need is an understatement.

The shortage of PMHNP and the need for them fueled my interest in continuing my education to assist in providing care for a growing demographic.  I have family with mental health illnesses and to watch them not be treated medically appropriate is another driving force that caused me to make the final decision to pursue this degree in advanced nursing practice.