Public health is a broad subject area that encompasses many topics that would be suitable for a nursing capstone project. Some potential public health topics include:
Health promotion and disease prevention – Projects could focus on lifestyle interventions to prevent chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. This could involve researching evidence-based health promotion programs and strategies.
Community health assessment – Partnering with a local health department or community organization to conduct assessments of health needs and issues in the community. This helps identify priorities for health programming.
Health policy – Analyzing existing policies or proposing new policies related to areas like access to healthcare, health insurance coverage, public health funding, health education in schools. Policy research and recommendations are important aspects of nursing.
Health disparities – Examining differences in health status and accessing care among different demographic groups. This could involve needs assessments, interviews, reviewing literature around underlying causes of inequities and strategies to address disparities.
Maternal and child health – Topics may include breastfeeding rates, prenatal care, newborn screening, immunizations, early childhood development programs. Needs assessments and educational programs are common project types.
Mental health is also a major area of focus in nursing practice and research. Possible mental health capstone topics include:
Substance use disorders – Projects could explore local substance use trends, evidence-based treatment models, strategies to reduce stigma. Interventions aimed at opioid or other addictions are highly relevant.
Depression/anxiety – Researching risk factors, impact on quality of life, comparative effectiveness of therapeutic approaches like counseling, medication, lifestyle changes. Developing related educational resources.
Alzheimer’s disease/dementia – Assessing local availability of memory care programs, caregiver support needs. Helping develop plans to address the growing dementia population as life expectancies increase.
Suicide prevention – Analyzing local data, reviewing literature on screening and prevention best practices, creating materials to distribute to healthcare providers. Suicide contines to be a leading cause of death.
Veterans mental health – Topics may involve researching challenges faced by veterans transitioning to civilian life, evaluating programs that support veterans and their families at the community-level.
Gerontology and aging services are big areas of clinical practice and policy focus. Potential related capstone topics include:
Nursing home quality improvement – Working with a long-term care facility to implement and study initiatives enhancing person-centered care, staff retention, reducing falls/hospital readmissions.
Palliative and hospice care – Investigating local end-of-life care options, coordinating with hospice providers on community education initiatives or improving access.
Aging in place – Conducting needs assessments of older adult populations and developing recommendations to support independent living and age-friendly communities through affordable housing, transportation, caregiver resources and more.
Geriatric mental health – Topics involving research and programs focused on Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression prevention, older adult addiction, hoarding disorder among the aging population.
Elder abuse prevention – Capstone could review signs, risk factors and evidence-based ways for families/providers to prevent/address physical, emotional, financial exploitation of seniors. Developing training curriculum.
Some additional nursing topic areas include: primary care models, chronic disease management, healthcare disparities, patient safety/quality improvement, nursing workforce issues, nursing leadership, informatics/technology applications, evidence-based practice and many more. The possibilities cover the broad domains of clinical practice, research, administration and policy that nurses work across. With faculty input, selecting a subject aligned with personal interests and local healthcare needs is a good approach for a meaningful capstone experience.