Nurses' attitudes towards drug misusers

Abstract

Working with drug misusers is a particular difficult area due to special skills that nurses need to carry out during the caring of these clients (Carroll 1993). Nurses hold more negative, punitive, and authoritarian orientations toward substance misusers. They are more supportive to compulsory treatment, and are less accepting towards personal and societal drug use (Howard & Chung 2000). The main aim of the study was to investigate nurses' attitudes towards drug misusers. A descriptive non-experimental design was used and data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews using mainly open-ended questions. The sample comprised 8 nurses (n=8) from the detoxification unit and the drug dependency unit at local hospitals chosen by the researcher. From this study it was found that nurses regarded, drug misusers as 'normal' individuals. However, it was quite evident that certain procedures were carried out with this clients group, but not with others that made use of the same health care services. Nurses regarded this client group as being 'manipulative' and 'unpredictable' and also they emphasised the need for extra security measures, protecting both the staff and other clients. Nurses were quite aware of these clients having both drug misuse problems and psychiatric conditions. Besides nurses were also able to identify other social problems that these clients encounter. Nurses identified certain limitations when working with these clients, in fact all admitted clients were referred to other specialised professionals, for further assessment and care.