Substance Abuse Disorder in Nursing: Evaluation and Recommendation for Regulatory Monitoring Program Performance Measures and Enhancement.

Abstract

Outcome measures for individual states' nursing professional alternative-to-discipline (ATD) programs have historically ceased beyond successful fulfillment of active program monitoring, leaving a gap in affirmation of sustained postprogram efficacy. The project objective challenges the absence of profession-specific postmonitoring practice, affording qualitative evaluation of the program's impact to professional nursing. The pilot study's 8-week process improvement PICO(T) seeks validation of incorporating postprogram monitoring to validate program efficacy, conceptualizing framework guidelines established by the Federation of State Physician Health Programs' Performance Enhancement Review. Study efforts encompass identified needs assessment, current practice through outcome recommendations, and access of developed online mixed-methods appraisal with an emphasis on qualitative analysis, questioning the alumni's state of sobriety, perspective related to program participation, workforce contribution to professional practice, and intent to remain in nursing. The proposed alumni graduate status between 2 and 5 years from program completion resulted in an 11% response rate: 90% reported zero relapse since program completion; greater than 50%, willingness to participate as ATD or peer mentors; 90%, nursing licensure in good standing; and 66%, intent to remain working in profession over the next 5 years. Limitations constitute sample size, inception groundwork, and project constraints. Findings offer insight from alumni perspective, validation of literary support, and organizational interest for implementation. Contributions to nursing practice embody care of the caregiver ideology and offer future collaboration with ATD programs at state, national, and global levels to support sustained recovery of professionals affected with substance use disorder.