The Same Result, Six Audiences: A Theory-Grounded Plan for Disseminating a Nurse-Led Antipsychotic Reduction Project
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Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, Aspen University
DNP845: Theoretical and Scientific Underpinnings
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
The Same Result, Six Audiences: A Theory-Grounded Plan for Disseminating a Nurse-Led Antipsychotic Reduction Project
A DNP project is not finished when the data are analyzed. Its value depends on whether the people who can use the findings learn about them in a form they can act on. This paper presents a dissemination plan for a composite nurse-led project that reduced antipsychotic prescribing for residents with dementia in one nursing home. It draws on a framework for dissemination that attends to message, source, audience, and channel, and it ties the plan back to the theoretical foundation of the project.
The Project and Its Findings
Over six months in a composite 140-bed nursing home, a nurse-led program combined pharmacist-supported medication review, care plans for each resident's distress written together with the aides who know them, family conferences, and added aide coverage in the late afternoon. Among residents with dementia, antipsychotic use fell from 22 percent to 12 percent. Documented behavioral incidents did not increase, and staff reported greater confidence in managing distress without medication. The project was grounded in Carper's patterns of knowing (Carper, 1978), which justified treating the observations of aides and families as evidence alongside trial data, and in the recognition that staffing is part of the intervention.
A Framework for Dissemination
Brownson et al. (2018) argue that the gap between discovery and application results in part from ineffective dissemination, and that dissemination efforts must take into account the message, the source who delivers it, the audience, and the channel. They note that practitioners and policy makers are more effectively reached through news media, social media, issue or policy briefs, one-on-one meetings, and workshops than through journal articles alone, and they describe upstream and midstream indicators of impact such as changes in awareness, use of evidence-based interventions, and policy. This plan applies those four elements to six audiences.
Audience 1: Staff at the Facility
Message: the program worked here, and your observations made it work. Source: the DNP student with the aides and nurses who led care plans. Channel: a short presentation at all-staff meetings on each shift, a one-page visual summary posted in break rooms, and recognition of individual staff. The goal is sustainment: staff who see their contribution are more likely to continue the practices.
Audience 2: Residents' Families
Message: your relative is receiving fewer medications with serious risks, and here is what we do instead. Source: the nurse who knows the resident and the facility's medical director. Channel: family council meetings and a plain-language letter. Families who understand the approach can support it and alert staff to changes in their relative's behavior.
Audience 3: Organizational Leadership
Message: antipsychotic use fell by nearly half, a publicly reported quality measure, without an increase in incidents, and the late-afternoon staffing investment was part of the result. Source: the DNP student with the director of nursing. Channel: a two-page brief and a meeting with the administrator and corporate quality leaders. The goal is continued funding for staffing and spread to sister facilities.
Audience 4: Regional Long-Term Care Peers
Message: a practical, replicable approach that works with existing staff. Source: the DNP student and a participating aide. Channel: a workshop at the regional long-term care association meeting with sample care plans and the medication review form.
Audience 5: The Nursing Profession
Message: a nurse-led, theory-grounded model for reducing antipsychotic use. Source: the DNP student and faculty mentor. Channel: a poster at a national gerontological nursing conference, followed by a manuscript submitted to a clinically focused nursing journal and deposited in the university's DNP project repository. Publication matters for reach over time: a citation analysis of research reports published in nursing research journals found that 94.5 percent of later citations appeared in clinical nursing journals, with a median of 1.5 years to the first citation and some studies still cited 18 years later (Oermann et al., 2010). A journal article reaches practice slowly but for a long time; a workshop reaches it quickly but only once. For that reason the manuscript will be written for clinicians, with the care plan template and medication review form included as supplementary material, so that a reader years from now can still use it.
Audience 6: Policy Makers
Message: adequate direct care staffing makes it possible to reduce medications that function as chemical restraint. Source: the DNP student through the state nurses association. Channel: a one-page issue brief shared in meetings with legislative staff on the aging committee. This audience connects the project's sociopolitical grounding to action beyond the facility.
Timing, Ethics, and Resources
The plan is sequenced so that each audience hears the findings from the right source before hearing them elsewhere. Staff and families come first, within a month of the final data, so that no one learns about their own facility's results from a conference program. Leadership follows, then regional peers and the conference, and finally the manuscript and policy brief, which take longest to prepare. Ethical considerations shape every channel: residents cannot be identifiable in any presentation, including photographs of care plans, and the facility's permission is required before it is named. Findings will be reported honestly, including the limits of a single-site, six-month project without a comparison group, since overstating results would undermine the credibility the plan depends on. Resources are modest: poster printing and conference registration, estimated at under $1,500, and roughly 60 hours of the DNP student's time over nine months, supported by the faculty mentor's review of the manuscript and brief.
Measuring Dissemination
Impact will be tracked with the upstream and midstream indicators the framework recommends (Brownson et al., 2018): attendance and questions at staff sessions, requests for materials from other facilities, adoption of the program at sister facilities within a year, conference acceptance and manuscript status, and any legislative or regulatory references to direct care staffing and antipsychotic use.
Conclusion
Dissemination turns a completed project into changed practice elsewhere. By shaping the message, source, and channel for each of six audiences, this plan aims to sustain the program where it began, spread it to other facilities, add it to the nursing literature, and inform staffing policy. The plan reflects the project's theoretical foundation: every form of knowing that produced the result deserves an audience that can use it.
References
Brownson, R. C., Eyler, A. A., Harris, J. K., Moore, J. B., & Tabak, R. G. (2018). Getting the word out: New approaches for disseminating public health science. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 24(2), 102-111. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000673
Carper, B. A. (1978). Fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 1(1), 13-24. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-197810000-00004
Oermann, M. H., Shaw-Kokot, J., Knafl, G. J., & Dowell, J. (2010). Dissemination of research into clinical nursing literature. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 19(23-24), 3435-3442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2702.2010.03427.x
How this DNP 845 Module 8 example is structured
DNP845 closes with disseminating findings, and the course page describes the final module as synthesizing the term's theoretical foundation. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so check your classroom for the exact prompt. This example states the project's findings and theory, applies a named dissemination framework audience by audience and ends with measures of impact.
DNP845 Module 8 questions, answered
What does DNP845 Module 8 usually ask for?
The final module is commonly about disseminating findings, often asking for a plan to share a project's results with different audiences, and it also draws together the theoretical foundation built across the course. Aspen does not publish module deliverables, so your classroom's instructions govern.
What should a dissemination plan include?
For each audience, the message it needs, the source it will trust, the channel that reaches it and a goal, plus measures of impact such as adoption by other sites, publications and policy references.
Why present to staff and leaders as well as publishing?
Journal articles reach practice slowly but are cited for years, while presentations and briefs reach local staff and decision makers quickly. Using both supports sustainment where the project happened and spread elsewhere.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.