422
Views
13
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

‘Asking’ but Not ‘Screening’: Assessing Physicians’ and Nurses’ Substance-Related Clinical Behaviors

, , , , , & show all
 

ABSTRACT

Background: Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is a promising public health approach for problematic substance use. A core component of SBIRT is the use of formal screening tools to categorize a patient's likely level of risk in order to provide an appropriately-matched service. Training in formal screening is included in many SBIRT training programs, but infrequently is emphasized. Objectives: To assess pre-training levels of SBIRT-related clinical behaviors, including screening, this study examined a secondary dataset collected from internal medicine residents and graduate nurse practitioner students. Methods: Learners (n = 117) completed 13 self-report items assessing use of SBIRT-related behaviors. Researchers used exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying concepts in the questionnaire, then used mixed ANOVA to compare mean frequency of utilization of each factor (asking, screening, and intervening) by academic program. Results: Learners reported asking about substance use frequently, intervening some of the time, and infrequently using formal screening tools. Interaction and between-academic-program effects were significant but small. Conclusions: Prior to SBIRT training, most clinical practitioners reported asking patients about substance use, but few reported regularly using formal substance use screening tools. This may have implications for the importance of SBIRT training as part of curricular work, and for the internal content foci of SBIRT curricula.

Acknowledgements

The training program described in this study was funded by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA TI025375). The authors would also like to thank Dr. Wasantha Jayawardene for his assistance with requested revisions to the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA TI025375].

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.