Honors Theses and Capstones

Date of Award

Spring 2025

Project Type

Senior Honors Thesis

College or School

CHHS

Department

Nursing

Program or Major

Nursing

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

First Advisor

Kimberly Force

Abstract

Objective: To utilize the Gallup Q12+ survey to assess baseline staff engagement among nurses and nursing assistants at a critical access hospital, implement direct education intervention, and evaluate its impact on staff engagement rates, with the goal of identifying micro and macro-problems.

Methods: This quality improved project was conducted at Littleton Regional Hospital, a level Ⅲ trauma center and critical access hospital. The PDSA cycle started on March 1 and ended May 10. The Gallup Q12+ survey was sent to Registered Nurses, Licensed Nursing Assistants, and Nursing Technicians to establish baseline staff engagement levels and areas that need improvement. Directed education sessions were implemented, consisting of five seminars over the course of 15 days that focused on organizational support systems, moral distress, decompression strategies, and communication. A post-intervention survey was conducted to analyze the intervention's efficiency. The Gallup Q12+ responses were calculated on a Likert-scale and analyzed using descriptive statistics and calculating the average percentage of individuals who choose “agree” or “strongly agree” across questions and units.

Results: Survey responses indicated improvements in several categories following the directed education sessions. The most notable increases were questions addressing organizational care for staff well being (+6%) and delivery on promises (+6%). However, the resurvey response rate was lower (80/119) and a few engagement areas declined upon the resurvey. Unit-level analysis presented varying levels of engagement, with certain units having consistently high engagement scores and others declining, calling attention to micro-problems.

Conclusion: The PDSA shows varying levels of increased and decreased engagements after the direct education session. This demonstrates that the intervention works as a generalized tool to discuss organizational supports, but further work needs to be done to test micro-level interventions for nursing managers to implement to improve staff engagement scores.

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