One potential capstone project idea related to gerontological nursing would be to conduct a needs assessment of elderly patients in long-term care facilities to determine their most pressing health, physical, emotional, and social needs that are not currently being adequately addressed. This type of comprehensive needs assessment could provide valuable insights to improve care for this population.

You could work with one or more local nursing homes and assisted living facilities to gain access to a sample of their elderly residents. With permission and ethical approval, you could design and administer a thorough needs assessment survey or questionnaire to collect both quantitative and qualitative data directly from residents about their experiences. The survey should address a wide range of needs across different domains of health and well-being based on relevant frameworks and models from the gerontology literature.

Some key areas the needs assessment survey could evaluate include physical health needs such as chronic disease management, pain, mobility issues, incontinence, dental health, vision and hearing impairments, nutritional needs, and more. It should also assess emotional and mental health needs such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, coping with losses, end-of-life issues. Social needs involving family support networks, visitation, opportunities for social engagement, meaningful activities and pursuits could be examined. Residents’ needs regarding safety, personal care assistance, managing medications and treatments would provide useful insights. Assessing needs related to the environment such as accessibility, wayfinding, noise levels and privacy could yield recommendations.

In addition to the resident survey, you may also want to conduct brief interviews with family members, friends, nursing staff and other care providers involved in residents’ care to gain their perspectives on needs as well to triangulate the data. The survey should have both closed-ended questions to generate quantitative findings as well as open-ended questions to allow for richer qualitative data on specific experiences and suggestions. With a robust sample size of at least 100-200 residents surveyed across multiple sites, the data collected could provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of needs.

Once the needs assessment data is collected, a thorough analysis would need to be conducted to identify prominent themes, gaps and priorities. Both quantitative statistical analysis methods as well as qualitative thematic analysis techniques could be applied to fully understand the results. The analyzed findings should then be compiled into a formal written report with clear descriptions, graphs, tables and quotes to illustrate the key needs uncovered through the research process.

This report could then be presented to administrators and staff at the participating long-term care facilities. The presentation of results should highlight the most urgent unmet needs, opportunities for improvement, and provide clear actionable recommendations based on best practices from the literature about how to better address residents’ needs. Recommendations could span different domains from direct care interventions to policy changes to environmental modifications. Following the presentation, feedback should also be solicited from the audience.

In the final stage of the project, an executive summary highlighting the purpose, methods, key findings and recommendations of the capstone could then be written. This executive summary could serves as a reference document for the facilities and be distributed more widely to regional stakeholders involved with eldercare such as advocacy groups, policymakers, other nursing homes as well as for publishing in relevant gerontological journals.

Conducting a rigorous needs assessment and providing clear recommendations based on the perspectives of elderly residents themselves has the potential for real impact. By directly informing improvements in how their needs are addressed across different levels, quality of life and care outcomes could potentially be enhanced for this vulnerable population. This type of capstone project aligns well with the goals of gerontological nursing by advocating for and enhancing the lives of older adults through research. With thorough planning and execution, it offers a meaningful way to culminate one’s studies and make a contribution to the field.