Nurses' Perceptions of Psychedelics to Address Mental Health Problems in the United States

To explore nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and perceived social norms about psychedelic use to address mental health conditions.

Data were collected through an anonymous e-survey of Minnesota registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses, and psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners in Spring 2023; the pool was randomly selected from the Minnesota Board of Nursing registry.

A total of 1133 nurses completed the survey. Respondents were generally demographically representative of Minnesota nurses. Nurses exhibited mixed attitudes toward psychedelic decriminalization (45.7% in favor, 20.1% against, and 34.2% unsure). Participants expressed openness to therapeutic use (mean = 20.5 and standard deviation = 4.3), interest in observing psychedelic sessions (80.7%), and believed in the importance of the role of nurses in the realm of psychedelic health care (74.1%). However, nurses reported low confidence in their knowledge about the potential benefits of psychedelics for the treatment of mental health concerns (26.5% confident) and mechanisms of action (21.2% confident).

With the potential Food and Drug Administration reclassification and approval of psychedelics for treating conditions such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and addiction, nurses are poised to play a crucial role in supporting scalable and equitable access to psychedelic treatment and information. Nurses and their health care professional counterparts require additional education and new competency development to appropriately and knowledgeably support evidence-based psychedelic use to treat various mental health conditions.