Cope Community Services, Inc.

The care you provide to women of childbearing age who are bleeding gets an assist from an established classification system of 9 causes and a range of therapies.

This quality improvement project aims at stressing the importance of screening for metabolic syndrome (MS) on patients with serious mental illness (SMI) managed with second generation antipsychotic (SGA) medication.

One hundred charts of patients who were on SGA (n=100) were randomly selected from more than 1000 charts for the purpose of this project with (n=50) charts for pre-intervention and (n=50) charts for post intervention. A chi-square test of independence was calculated comparing the frequency of labs and vital done in pre-intervention and post-intervention period.

A significant interaction was found [χ²(2)=32.67, p<.001] indicating that providers were more likely to order labs in postintervention (62%) than in pre-intervention (22%). No significant relationship was found for vital signs [χ²(1)=.542, p>.05]. The use of the screening and monitoring tool showed that gaps exist in the screening for MS among patients on SGA.

Advanced health nurse practitioners are well placed to take the lead in screening, monitoring, and implementing the necessary measures to address MS among patients with serious mental illness.