Attitudes of Registered Nurses toward Alcoholic Patients in a General Hospital Population

Abstract

The Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire was administered to 66 registered nurses at a community hospital to ascertain their attitudes regarding alcoholic patients in a general hospital population. This was done to provide documentation on what nurses attitudes actually are as opposed to making an assumption about what they should be because of the high visibility of the problem of alcoholism. The author reports the results of the study and then contrasts them with information about registered nurses attitudes toward alcoholic patients at a university hospital. The article concludes with insight into contributing factors for the differences

Key Words:

• Attitudes
• Registered nurses
• Alcoholics
• The Alcoholism Questionnaire