Does your school's coursework include anything on educating the students about the increased risk of substance abuse for nurses?

[RecoveryNurse2015]

the statistics are like 20% but if i was ever educated on the subject i don't remember? is that something they do now?

[rnhopeful82, ASN, RN]

Mine doesn't as far as I've seen or heard.

[verene, MSN]

The BON came and spoke to our cohort at one point about a variety of topics and included some information on risk of substance use and the programs available in the state for healthcare providers and BON process should one end up voluntarily or involuntarily in substance use treatment.

[James W.]

Yeah, student nurse anecdote time:

Back in the day, our starting group of 30 student psych-nurses had 3 smokers.

By graduation, I was one of 3, who didnt!

Although, to be fair, smoking was rife, & over-tolerated back then, to the extent that the hospital's interior walls were painted in shade officially named 'Nicotine Yellow', a practical approach, since any lighter colour would rapidly develop that tone.

Having made that obsevation, I'd add suicide to drug abuse as a higher-than-background cadre statistic for nursing students.

Cause or effect?

But it does not seem to be a topic for much 'nursing research' - that I've seen.

[direw0lf, BSN]

My school touched on many of the issues nurses may face, including substance abuse, where we learned about the RAMP program (a BON NJ based program for nurses with substance abuse). They made sure to tell us how substance abuse can happen to any one of us. It was a downer (hahah..joke)

[sillymu, BSN, RN]

I'm in the last semester of my program and we had two lectures on it and we also had someone from the state come in and talk it about it and a guest speaker that is a nurse that is on probation for diverting. It was on our exam and included in our unit about treating patients dealing with substance abuse.

[emmjayy, BSN, RN]

Yep, I had a whole two hour class devoted to it. I learned that high-achieving, type-A personalities that put pressure on themselves and work in critical care are most likely to divert/abuse substances... and all of those risk factors apply to me. I do keep that thought in mind and try to have excellent self-care habits to avoid potentially falling into the pitfall of diversion and narcotics/alcohol abuse.

[0.9%NormalSarah, BSN, RN]

1 hour ago, emmjayy said:

Yep, I had a whole two hour class devoted to it. I learned that high-achieving, type-A personalities that put pressure on themselves and work in critical care are most likely to divert/abuse substances... and all of those risk factors apply to me. I do keep that thought in mind and try to have excellent self-care habits to avoid potentially falling into the pitfall of diversion and narcotics/alcohol abuse.

Oh my! That is good info to learn, thank you for this. I am also that person, super Type A and starting off my first nursing job in the MICU. I don't feel that I would ever be the type of person to divert and become a drug addict, but I am sure that everyone felt that way before actually doing it. I appreciate your comment and will follow your example of keeping this top of mind while taking care of myself!

That being said, in my ADN program we very briefly covered this in our leadership portion. However, our professors were constantly reminding us in passing during relevant parts of lectures that this is a huge problem in nursing.

[LilPeanut, MSN, RN, NP]

I think the rates of addiction of nurses are similar to other people, but I'm not positive on that. The problem is that if you are someone who is on the threshold of addiction or prone to addiction, you are going to be around addictive substances that can be too easily diverted

[JKL33]

22 hours ago, 0.9%NormalSarah said:

However, our professors were constantly reminding us in passing during relevant parts of lectures that this is a huge problem in nursing.

20 hours ago, LilPeanut said:

I think the rates of addiction of nurses are similar to other people, but I'm not positive on that.

Correct. The rates are in line with the rest of the population, right around 10%.

I really hate it when this topic is used to scare nurses or when it is exaggerated, and I despise the lists of "things to look for" in our fellow nurses.