Admission to a psychiatric inpatient unit can be a stressful experience and often times patients are admitted in a state of crisis. This state of crisis can elicit emotions of agitation and/or anxiety. When these emotions are not quickly addressed there is an increased safety risk for psychiatric staff caring for these patients. This DNP project provides a programmatic evaluation that includes a review of the literature. The review of literature was used in the development of targeted nursing

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... ucation designed to address anxiety and agitation on an inpatient adult psychiatric unit. A care protocol was then developed. This protocol would allow nurses to administer oral as needed (PRN) medications (ordered by the psychiatric physicians upon admission) to patients that met criteria. This project proposes that programmatic evaluation resulting in targeted nursing education can result in earlier assessment of anxiety and agitation in the psychiatric patient. An early assessment should lead to faster administration of oral psychotropics and potentially avoid negative sequelae such as incidents of assault against staff members (workplace violence), code grey alarms, seclusion and restraints. Keywords: psychiatry, nurse education module, PRN medications, workplace violence, program evaluation