Nurses Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices toward Care Provided to Hospitalized Drug Depended

Abstract

Addiction refers to regular, long term illicit consumption of either prescription or non prescription drugs, such as opiates and narcotics, including injection of opioids,amphetamines or cocaine. Health care professional's attitudes towards both illicit drugs and the people who use them will affect their approach to providing care. Patient with a history of illicit drug use requires complex care, including frequent hospital admission, as illicit drug use is often associated with various complications, including HIV, Hepatitis C infection and/or mental illness. The quality of care received by drug depended patients can be affected by the reaction of health care providers. In this regard, nurses have a key position in delivering of care;ithavean important role in addiction treatment among health providers specially nurses. Therefore, it is important to assess nurse's knowledge, attitudes and practices towards care provided to hospitalized drug depended.

Aim of the study To assess nurse's knowledge, attitudes and practices towards care provided to hospitalized drug depended. Research question: This study was based on answering the following question: What is nurse's knowledge, attitudes and practices towards care provided to hospitalized drug depended? Research setting The study was conducted at Heliopolis Psychiatric Hospital. Subject of the study: Nurses who were working with drug depended patients. Study type: A descriptive study type was utilized. Sample type: It was a convenience sample. Sample size: The subject of the present study included 70 nurses, which represented about 98% of total hospital nurses number. Tools of data collection: Data were collected using the following tools: c) Interviewingquestionnaire was constructed based on the current literature and was design by the researcher. The aim of the questionnaire was to gather information related to nurses’ knowledge. The questionnaire was divided into three parts: 1- Part one: Demographic data of nurses such as; age, sex, educational level, qualification, experience, material status …. etc. 2- Part two: Questions related to nurse's knowledge about addiction as concepts, factors, causes, prediction, and characteristics of addict behavior, problems influence nurse's life due to their interaction with the addict patents and treatment of the addict patients according to nurse's view. 3- Part three: Questions related to nurse's attitude towards care providing to drug depended patient in psychiatric hospital. Questionnaire was filled by the nurses in the presence of the researcher. d) An observation check list: was designed by the researcher and constructed basically for the following purpose: To assess nurses’ practices towards the drug depended patient behavior in psychiatric hospital. The observation check list included, items related to acceptance, communication and nurses’ practice in providing a care for addict patient in psychiatric hospitals. Each nurse was observed three times at different times of day (morning and afternoon shifts).