Nursing is a profession within the health care domain that primarily focuses on the care of individuals, families, and communities in a way such that they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life.

Nurses are generally differentiated from the other health care providers by their approach to patient care, training, and scope of practice. Nurses can practice in many specialties with differing levels of prescribing authority. Most of the nurses provide tender care within the ordering scope of the doctors/physicians, and this traditional role has created the public image of nurses as care providers. However, in many cases, nurse practitioners are permitted by most jurisdictions to practice independently under different conditions and settings. 

Nursing education has undergone a process of diversification towards advanced and specialized credentials in the post-war period and also many of the traditional regulations and provider roles are dynamically changing. Nurses devise a plan of care, working collaboratively with doctors and physicians, therapists, the patient, the patient's family and other team members, that focuses on treating ailments or other illnesses to improve quality of life. 

In many developed countries, advanced practice nurses, such as clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners, diagnose health problems and can prescribe medications and other therapies, based on individual state regulations. Nurses help coordinate the patient care performed by other members of a multidisciplinary health care team such as therapists, medical practitioners as well as dieticians. They provide care both interdependently along with physicians, and independently as nursing professionals.

BEST IDEAS FOR NURSING CAPSTONE PROJECT

Before professionally starting nursing practices, all nurse students have to go through the process of formal education, complete much testing i.e. practical exposure and prove their fit to health care requirements. Their practices and approaches are subject to serious evaluation, mainly by means of developing different kinds of health projects and evidence-based assessments. 

In order to complete medical education and become an expert specialist dealing with patients, one has to gain knowledge about patients’ risks and diseases (for children and adults), disease management, best time of providing any kind of help, and great sources for searching relevant patient-related information online.

Capstone project is one kind of nursing project that has been helping many nursing centuries over the decades. Many students often complain that they don’t have any valuable capstone ideas for nursing.  However, a detailed observation will help the students to understand which topic to choose, where to find good free sources and how to make the presentation interesting and evidence-based. 

CAPSTONE IDEAS FOR NURSING

The two main objectives one needs to keep in mind while searching for capstone ideas for nursing are:

• Developing some valuable capstone ideas for nursing is not very difficult. In order to make a nursing project successful, one needs to start with the list of one’s competencies and clinical interests as it becomes easier to approach the subject by having a complete understanding thereof. One needs to understand one’s area of interest from the beginning.
• The next objective is to search for evidence on the subject – one needs to look through recent publications, approach them with a critical insight regarding what is essential in the practical field. This preliminary search will give more ideas on further topic’s refining, making the research process for the nursing project move on smoothly.

The following are some common capstone nursing project ideas:

Sudden fall of a patient:  There can be unanticipated fall of a patient. Many researchers have worked in this area, but the problem remains acute.  Generally the elderly people or those with specific mental and physical conditions, e.g., dementia, hypoglycemia. Sodium-potassium imbalance etc. Working on such a sensitive topic may give one a hint to betterment of practices in this professional nursing area and prompt actions can be taken if such a situation arises.

Anesthesia: The role of anesthesia is of immense importance in case of medical surgeries and other complicated medical conditions. The dose for anesthesia varies from patient to patient depending on their age, health conditions etc. So a nursing capstone project based on such an issues will help the students understand the doses better and further help in their professional career. 

Wound care: Wounds are very common in everyone’s life.  However they are one of the leading causes of hospital admission, and their adequate management can affect patient outcomes tremendously. One can explore recent research and practice gaps in the field and this will be an excellent nursing Capstone project idea.

Prevention of infections in hospitals: It has been often noticed that after a successful surgery or recovery from a grave illness, a patient often falls victim to infections while staying in hospitals. Infections constitute the ill of all healthcare establishments, and the rate of hospital-acquired infections is alarmingly rising now. One needs to look through materials on this issue –this can provide a very good capstone project idea.

Psychological assessment of patients who are suspected of having depression:  Depression is one of the common diseases which is often overlooked in hospital settings, especially if patients get admitted with some other health problems. A person’s state of psychological health always influence on their physical treatment outcomes, so  it is important to diagnose an early onset of depression as it may help in quick recovery. Further researches on this will aid the nursing student in understanding patient’s psychology better and this will also be a very good capstone project idea as well.

Home transfer research: Patients staying in the hospital receive all time assistance and attention of healthcare staff. Nevertheless, many conditions are long-term and chronic, so patients need to acquire vital self-care skills during their hospital stay. Research can be done on this area and some new educational interventions may come out as useful. Effective self-management of symptoms at home directly will contribute to reduction of hospital readmission.  

Promotion of breastfeeding practices and education:  Researches have shown that breastfeeding not only aids the kid but also protects the mother from many unwanted ailments. Hence, this topic is always urgent. Some more educational interventions or programs can be developed based on these issues and it will be a good Capstone project idea.

Review of sexually transmitted diseases:  In India sex is still considered as a taboo and people are hesitant to discuss about sexually transmitted diseases even today. This in turn causes serious detrimental effects on the health of a person. A further research and review on sexually transmitted diseases will not only be a wonderful capstone project idea but will also help several patients to come out of their shell and understand the seriousness of the problem.

Making a full-scale Capstone project is more complicated than dealing with a research paper topic selection process. However, one can still simplify it by choosing an interesting topic that has not been researched much previously. In the end it all depends on the person’s choices and availability of data sources. These determine what topic a person will be choosing as a capstone project.