In-service drug and alcohol education for generalist nurses: are they interested?

A review of the literature reveals that generalist nurses tend to have negative attitudes towards providing care to patients with drug and alcohol problems. Pessimistic attitudes are frequently attributed to inadequate education to enable the development of knowledge and skills required to deal confidently with these patients. Insufficient content in drug and alcohol issues has been found to be characteristic of undergraduate nursing curricula throughout England, America and Australia. In-service education is often presented as a viable alternative. This paper addresses the paucity of research in relation to in-service education on drug and alcohol related issues, for registered nurses. A research project was conducted involving general nurses (n = 106) employed in a private, acute, medical-surgical hospital, were surveyed to ascertain the amount of drug and alcohol in-service education they had received, whether they were interested in more, and the type of in-service education they would require. The results of this study clearly demonstrated that the registered nurses recognized their need for more education in this area.