#1 Nursing Resource: 8 Million pageviews per month

Log in   Sign up   Why join?   | Layout: Switch to narrow layout Color: gold style blue style rose style
Nursing Community for Nurses
Home Forums Articles Specialty Students Region Career Resources

Advanced Search Site Help Site Map

ETOH withdrawal in acute care setting



Currently Online
Members: 221
Guests: 1,383
1,604

Job Spotlight
Sales & Customer Service Rep
Broughton, Illinois
Forum Spotlight
Distance Learning for Nursing

Nursing Degrees

Nursing Articles

The Patient I Failed
Patients Who Have Changed My Life
Rocking Camille
"I'm Leaving You Here....."
The most beautiful curls I'd ever seen
Patients who have changed our lives
We are so lucky....
The Little Old Lady
John Doe
Remember the days before my death
Submit An Article

Nursing Jobs

Job Seeker: Employer:

Scrubs & Gear

Newsletter

Subscribe to the free allnurses.com email newsletter. We will keep you informed of nursing news, articles, discussions, and more.

Enter your email address:

Read current:
Nursing Newsletter

How-To allnurses

allnurses videos

Welcome to allnurses: A Nursing Community for Nurses

The largest most active online nursing community. Join 302,370 nurses from around the world to learn, communicate, and network. For full allnurses.com access, register today - it's free! Problems during registration? Please don't hesitate to contact support.

Would you like to comment?
Join or Login if already a member.
 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
  #1  
Old Nov 02, 2006, 10:33 AM
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2006
Smile ETOH withdrawal in acute care setting

I am attempting to find information from nurses who treat patients for ETOH withdrawal in acute care. I work in a cardiac step down unit and find our current treatment practice to borderline on cruel and unuasual punishment. Not just for the patients, but the RN's who care for them. If you are using a successful treatment protocol I would love to hear from you.
Thank you

Top
  #2  
Old Nov 02, 2006, 11:45 AM
Daytonite (Female)
1000-yr Turtle
Join Date: May 2005

Hi, rnanm!

There are a couple of ways to approach this. You can work within your system which is the way you should start because it's the way you have to end up working with it anyway. Any hospital protocols for the treatment of something like this usually come through a couple of different committees. One of them will be a nursing committee and another will be one of the physician committees. What usually happens is that this problem would be brought up and a group of people assigned to collect information on it. This would be a good opportunity for you to volunteer to become involved in how these things work in your hospital.

If you just want to find information on your own, you should try contacting your state medical association or state board of medicine. The doctors police themselves when it comes to substance and alcohol abuse, so there are some physicians who are well versed in the treatment and handling of this. They would be a good place to start looking for information. Also, I would contact the local leadership of the AA and ask where the local acute detox centers are. Once you find some of these acute detox programs, call and ask to talk with one of the medical or nursing professionals who does staff education. You want to ask if they would be willing to share their treatment protocols with you. We had a substance abuse nurse practitioner (we used to call her the alcoholic nurse ) who did this as part of her job duties at a facility where I worked on a detox unit years ago. She was often consulted by nurses outside our facility and often spoke at nursing workshops and conventions about detoxing patients safely.

Welcome to allnurses!

Top
  #3  
Old Nov 02, 2006, 05:46 PM
Tweety's Avatar
Tweety (Male)
Admin Team
Join Date: Oct 2002
Re: ETOH withdrawal in acute care setting

We use the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol Scale (CIWA-Ar). Perhaps if you Google it you can find more information.

Basically, it's a nurse driven protocol based on the nurses assessment.

Top
  #4  
Old Nov 02, 2006, 07:48 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2006
Thumbs up Re: ETOH withdrawal in acute care setting

Thank you all for the valuable suggestions and sharing your experience with me. I will follow up on them and let you know the results.
rnanm

Top
Sponsored Links
 
Would you like to comment?
Join or Login if already a member.



Currently Active Users Viewing: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search



New To Site?
Need Help?

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:56 AM.

ETOH withdrawal in acute care setting

Copyright © 1996-2008, allnurses.com. All rights reserved.  allnurses.com, Inc. Advertising Information