| Course | NURS 8002 Foundations and Essentials for the Doctor of Nursing Practice |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 3 |
| Paper type | Essentials gap map |
| Length | About 1,040 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 8002 Week 3
From a Positive Screen to Nobody Calling: Mapping a Depression Follow-Up Gap in Family Practice to the 2021 AACN Essentials
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 8002: Foundations and Essentials for the Doctor of Nursing Practice
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
From a Positive Screen to Nobody Calling: Mapping a Depression Follow-Up Gap in Family Practice to the 2021 AACN Essentials
The Gap in Two Sentences
In a composite family practice of five clinicians, adults who score in the moderate range or higher on the PHQ-9 at a visit are supposed to receive a follow-up contact from the practice within two weeks, either a nurse phone call or a scheduled visit. An internal audit of recent positive screens, described here without real figures, found that the follow-up happened reliably when the screening clinician scheduled it before the patient left and rarely when it depended on someone remembering afterward.
Desired Practice
Desired practice is defined by national guidance and by the practice's own policy. Federal preventive guidance calls for depression screening across the adult population, pregnant, postpartum and older adults included, and it adds that screening should be put in place only with adequate systems in place to ensure accurate diagnosis, effective treatment and appropriate follow-up (US Preventive Services Task Force et al., 2023). The PHQ-9, the instrument the practice uses, was validated in primary care as a measure of depression severity, with scores in the moderate range and above indicating a need for active treatment or further assessment (Kroenke et al., 2001). The practice's policy translates this into a concrete standard: every adult with a PHQ-9 score of 10 or more receives a follow-up contact within two weeks, documented in the record.
Desired practice is therefore not only screening but a closed loop: screen, assess, plan and follow up. The gap is in the last link.
Why the Gap Matters
A positive screen without follow-up can be worse than no screen. The patient has disclosed symptoms, sometimes for the first time, and heard nothing back. The clinician may believe care is underway when it is not. And the practice reports a screening rate that suggests quality while the patients most in need fall through. The Task Force's condition, that screening be paired with systems for follow-up, is exactly what the practice has not yet met.
Mapping the Gap to the Essentials
The 2021 AACN Essentials organize nursing education into ten domains, each with competencies written for entry-level and advanced-level practice (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2021). Not every domain bears on this gap, and forcing all ten into the map would dilute it. Table 1 maps the gap's components to the five domains that bear on it most directly.
Table 1
Components of the Follow-Up Gap Mapped to 2021 Essentials Domains
| Gap component | Domain | What the domain asks of an advanced-level nurse here |
|---|---|---|
| Follow-up depends on memory rather than a system | Domain 5: Quality and Safety | Design and evaluate a process that makes the follow-up reliable, and measure whether it happens |
| No one owns the step between screening and follow-up | Domain 7: Systems-Based Practice | Analyze how scheduling, staffing and roles create the gap, and redesign the workflow across them |
| The record does not flag positive screens awaiting follow-up | Domain 8: Informatics and Healthcare Technologies | Work with informatics staff to build a registry or worklist that surfaces patients due for contact |
| Nurses, clinicians and the behavioral health consultant do not share a plan | Domain 6: Interprofessional Partnerships | Clarify roles and hand-offs so each positive screen has one accountable person |
| Evidence on follow-up models has not been reviewed | Domain 4: Scholarship for the Nursing Discipline | Appraise evidence on care management and follow-up models before choosing one |
Three domains are left out deliberately. The domains on nursing knowledge, on care centered on the person and on population health all touch depression care, but they bear on what happens at and after the visit rather than on the missing link between them. They may become relevant if the project later addresses treatment itself.
What Has Not Yet Been Measured
The internal audit showed a pattern but was small and informal. Before a project can be designed, the gap needs a clearer measure: how many positive screens occur each month, what share receive documented follow-up within two weeks and whether follow-up differs by clinician, day of week or type of visit. The practice also does not know what happens to patients who are not contacted, whether they seek care elsewhere, return on their own or disengage. These unknowns are not a reason to delay mapping the gap; they are the first questions the project will have to answer, and they belong to the quality and safety domain as much as any intervention does.
Implications for My DNP Work
Mapping this gap clarifies what kind of project it would support. It is not a research question about whether depression screening works; that question has been answered well enough for national guidance to recommend it. It is a practice question about why a known standard is not met and how to change the system so it is. That places the work where the practice doctorate is meant to work, in translation and systems change. It also suggests that the most important competencies I will need are not clinical knowledge of depression, which the practice already has, but the ability to redesign a workflow, build a worklist with informatics partners and measure whether follow-up becomes reliable.
Conclusion
The gap is narrow and specific: the step between a positive screen and a follow-up contact. Its narrowness is its strength as a DNP concern. It can be measured, it has a clear standard and it maps to five domains in which an advanced-level nurse is expected to lead. The next step is to state it as a problem precise enough to be checked by someone outside the practice.
Writing the map also changed how I describe the problem to colleagues. Before, I said that our practice was not good at depression follow-up, which invited defensiveness and a list of reasons. Now I say that the step between a positive screen and a follow-up call has no owner and no reminder, which invites a conversation about design. The first description blames people; the second describes a system that people can change together. That shift in language is itself a small piece of the systems-based practice the Essentials describe, and I expect it to matter when I ask the practice's leaders to support a project.
References
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2021). The Essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education.
Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. W. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606-613. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x
US Preventive Services Task Force, Barry, M. J., Nicholson, W. K., Silverstein, M., Chelmow, D., Coker, T. R., Davidson, K. W., Davis, E. M., Donahue, K. E., Jaén, C. R., Li, L., Ogedegbe, G., Pbert, L., Rao, G., Ruiz, J. M., Stevermer, J. J., Tsevat, J., Underwood, S. M., & Wong, J. B. (2023). Screening for depression and suicide risk in adults: US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statement. JAMA, 329(23), 2057-2067. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2023.9297
What the NURS 8002 Week 3 instructions ask for
Short papers early in this course usually ask you to describe a practice gap and map it to the DNP Essentials or the 2021 domains. Expect three to four pages with a table. State the gap in a sentence or two, current practice against desired practice, and define desired practice from a named standard. Explain why the gap matters in terms of patients and the organization. Break the gap into components and map each one to the domain it most clearly involves, explaining what the domain asks of an advanced-level nurse in that situation. Select domains rather than listing all of them, and say why you left some out. Admit what you have not yet measured, since that becomes your next step.
How the NURS 8002 Week 3 example is put together
A two-sentence statement of the gap opens the paper. A desired-practice section cites the federal task force's 2023 screening recommendation, with its condition about follow-up systems, and Kroenke and colleagues on the PHQ-9. A section explains why an unfollowed positive screen can be worse than none. Table 1 maps five gap components to five 2021 domains, citing the AACN Essentials, with a paragraph on three domains left out. A section lists what has not been measured. Implications for the author's DNP work follow, then a conclusion and a paragraph on how the map changed the way the author describes the problem to colleagues.
NURS 8002 Week 3 rubric: what earns full marks
Gap maps are generally scored on the precision of the gap, the use of a recognized standard, the quality of the mapping and awareness of what remains unknown. Precision is rewarded when the gap names a population, a standard and a failure point. Standards should come from national guidance or policy, cited accurately. Mapping earns the most when each component is linked to a domain with an explanation of what the nurse would do, rather than a label. Selectivity is often a named criterion. Honest acknowledgment of unmeasured aspects reads as rigor. Faculty also credit a clear table and consistent use of one edition of the Essentials. APA formatting and a short conclusion complete the rubric.
NURS 8002 Week 3 help: mistakes that cost marks
Gap maps lose marks when the gap is described as a topic, such as depression care, rather than a distance between practices. Another common loss is mapping to every domain, which thins each explanation to a phrase. Some papers mix the 2006 Essentials and the 2021 domains in one table. Others claim a precise rate from an informal audit. State the gap in two sentences, anchor desired practice in a standard, break the gap into parts, map selectively with explanations, name what is unmeasured and connect the map to your own development. The desk can prepare a map for the gap you have identified. Keep audit findings general unless you have permission to report numbers.
Get a NURS 8002 Week 3 example written to your instructions
Upload the Week 3 instructions, the rubric and any table template your section provides, and a gap map built to those specifications is drafted. The first is free, with a turnaround of 24 to 48 hours. The screening gap here comes from an imagined practice; the one you map should come from a setting you can actually observe, since no example can supply it.
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NURS 8002 Week 3 questions, answered
Can the gap be something the author has not measured yet?
At this point in NURS 8002, usually yes. The example describes an internal audit in general terms without citing numbers, and it acknowledges in its closing paragraph that the gap's size still has to be established. Your faculty may expect a stronger local indicator later in the course, once the problem statement is drafted, but an early map is allowed to be provisional.
Where can I find a free NURS 8002 Week 3 sample paper?
The complete gap map, statement, standard, significance, domain table and unmeasured questions, is published on this page, free of charge. A map for your own practice gap can be requested.
Which Essentials does the NURS 8002 Week 3 map use?
The 2021 AACN domains: quality and safety, systems-based practice, informatics, interprofessional partnerships and scholarship, chosen because each bears on the missing follow-up step.
Why does the NURS 8002 Week 3 map leave some domains out?
Because the domains on nursing knowledge, person-centered care and population health touch depression care broadly but not the specific link between a positive screen and follow-up.
How many rows should an Essentials gap map have, as in NURS 8002 Week 3?
As many as the gap's components require; the example uses five, one per component, because each needs a real explanation rather than a label.