Changing BSN Students’ Stigma Toward Patients Who Use Alcohol and Opioids Through Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Education and Training: A Pilot Study

Abstract

SBIRT education and training for undergraduate nursing students might help mitigate some of their stigma toward working with patients who have mild to moderate alcohol and opioid use problems.

Can Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment Education and Clinical Exposure Affect Nursing Students’ Stigma Perception Toward Alcohol and Opioid Use?

“…Participants' motivation to work with patients with AO use problems were collected at the same three time points. The survey used to provide data for the study aims was the same one used in the pilot study with details provided in Mahmoud et al (2018). The survey included five subscales to measure the following variables: Familiarity, Perceived Dangerousness, Fear, Social Distance, and Motivation (see Table 2).…”

“…In order to address this gap, it is important to develop interventions that can diminish health care providers' stigmatizing attitudes and subsequently enhance patient outcomes (Corrigan et al, 2016a(Corrigan et al, , 2016b. A pilot study by Mahmoud et al (2018) was conducted to test the efficacy of an intervention to guide nursing students' perceptions toward caring for patients affected by alcohol and/or opioid use problems. The favorable results of that study led to its extension into a larger efficacy study, described herein.…”

Assessing pharmacy student experience with, knowledge of and attitudes towards harm reduction: illuminating barriers to pharmacist-led harm reduction

“…Opioids and substance use have become a recent focus of adaptive medical [ 21 , 31 ], nursing [ 32 – 34 ], and pharmacy [ 35 – 37 ] curricula. This study utilized measures by which to assess incoming student knowledge and attitudes with regard to opioids and substance use.…”

Nursing Education in the Midst of the Opioid Crisis

“…Some reasons for the lack of inclusion of substance use education may be due to concerns that the curriculum is an already oversaturated; assumptions that substance use is being taught in the psychiatric nursing or other courses; or that faculty do not have proficiency to teach the subject matter (Smothers et al, 2018). Nurses are the health care employees who have the most contact with patients, which places them in an ideal position to screen for substance use (Knopf-Amelung et al, 2018;Nash et al, 2017;Oermann, 2018;Savage, Dyehouse, & Marcus, 2014), and providing undergraduate nursing students' with substance use education has been found to build their confidence and competence, as well as reduce stigmatizing attitudes (Koetting & Freed, 2017;Lewis & Jarvis, 2019;Mahmoud et al, 2018;Nash et al, 2017;Smothers et al, 2018). There is evidence that some undergraduate programs have introduced substance use education classes and programs; however, these efforts are lacking consistency and it is not known what other substance useerelated content may be included (SBIRT [Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment]; alcohol, tobacco, pain management; stigma; or special populations), how many hours are included, or where in the curriculum the education occurs.…”