Neonatal nurses' knowledge of and attitudes toward caring for cocaine-exposed infants and their mothers

The knowledge, attitudes, and backgrounds of 215 nurses employed in the nurseries of six hospitals were studied by means of a questionnaire survey. The nurses' attitudes toward the mothers of cocaine-addicted infants were found to be generally negative and/or judgmental and their knowledge to be low. More experience with nursing cocaine-addicted infants and greater acuity of the neonatal unit in which the nurse worked correlated with more positive attitudes toward the infants but not toward their mothers. Knowledge and attitude correlated positively with formal education, inservice education, and self-education, but the correlations were weak.