Improving nurses' responses toward substance-misusing patients: a clinical evaluation project

Practitioners in acute and primary care settings often fail to identify and intervene with chemically dependent patients. Counterproductive attitudes, lack of knowledge, and poor clinical skills impede early identification, treatment, and referral. In response to these problems, an educational intervention was designed to improve practicing nurses' recognition of and responses to substance-misusing patients. Results of the pretest posttest comparison group evaluation suggest that educational interventions were influential in improving nurses' confidence in caring for substance misusing patients. Although data reflecting changes in attitudes were less compelling, the improvement in treatment optimism is a positive change that has important clinical implications.