Substance abuse among stress nurses
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Why do nurses and doctors abuse drug? Nursing is a professionalism, and it is a rewarded career. There is a shortage of nurses worldwide, so nursing is always highly demanded. Nurses have been trained to be the first to treat and the last to provide a comfort and safety high quality care for the patients. There are more female nurses in the profession, and they tend to abuse prescription drugs as females may have more stress than males naturally. Nursing job is required a lot of physical work as well as mental work, so it is very stressful. Nurses who are stress may develop chemical dependency and substance abuse. Nurses also have abused to substance disorder for a variety of reasons included professional stress, access, culture differences, and personal attitude. Truly, nurses do not think that they are substances disorders. Therefore, the impaired nurses may harm themselves as well as their patients and the colleagues.
What is the cause of burn out in nursing field? There are more than one factors effect nursing profession included work-load, overtime, rotation shifts, 12 hours shift, bullying, ill patients, death,
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The healthcare providers are commonly used Hydrocodone, Morphine, Oxycodone, Fentanyl, Ambien, Xanax, Valium, Ritalin. They had used the medication without orders, substitution medication, and frequent medication overrides. They had used the waste of the medicine. They had used the falsification order signature. Especially, nurses, who are older than 48 years old, may need the drugs for relieved chronic pain as their bodies are easily to be injured to musculoskeletal. There are 10 percent to 15 percent of general population involved in substance abuse. However, healthcare profession has a higher rate of using prescription drugs. The healthcare profession had used drugs for occupational hazard pain (John Furman, January
Paracetamol, codeine, lorazepam are three commonly use drugs among population (Rhea and Reynaldo 391). Abuse of different medication show different effects on a person, and many people die because of drug abuse. Nevertheless,
“And do remember that a gramme is better than damn.” In the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, drug use is regarded as part of daily life and often glorified by the characters. While the characters in Huxley’s novel have no problem using drugs to replace their emotions, prescription opioid abuse has become a major concern in the United States. Prescribing guidelines for these drugs need to be stricter in order to prevent prescription drug abuse from growing.
Assessment This patient has been taking medication because they suffered a sports injury in 2010. The pills have been prescribed from by their PCP. Therefore, the client tested positive for opiates. The client also states that they have never had any issues with drugs in the past and that they have never had any problems with their professional license or employment.
Availability of opioids puts more and more people at risk for addiction. A simple prescription from the doctor for a migraine or back pain can turn into an addiction. Doctors are faced daily with patients who complain of pain, acute and chronic. It has become a simple solution for them to write out a prescription for pain medication to help their patient. In turn, not helping them at all.
(Earnshaw, et. al 117). In addition to affecting the lives of patients, addiction impacts the community’s functionality. Interestingly, frequent use of psychoactive medications by patients of all ages can lead to addiction, but administration of these medications is a valuable technique of treatment for ailments. Medications can provide relief from discomfort that a patient may experience, nevertheless while causing an alteration in
The study was done on patients who were in the emergency department and were prescribed opioids. They interviewed patients at home. It consisted of two different interviews. The research assistant looked to see where the opioids were being stored and to see if they were being safely stored. Twenty five patients gave consent to be part of the study.
“ Because they produce euphoria in addition to pain relief, they can be misused. Regular use- even as prescribed by a doctor can lead to dependence ,and when misused, opioid pain relievers can lead to overdose incidents and deaths” (Drugabuse.gov/opioids) Prescribing opioids have more dangers to the human than they do
Opioid pain medications are some of the most commonly abused prescription drugs. Between 1991 and 2010, opioid prescriptions rose from about 75.5 million to 209.5 million. Americans account for 4.6% of the world’s population but consume approximately 80% of the world’s opioid supply. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 12 million people used prescription painkillers for nonmedical reasons in 2010. Opioid abuse has led to increases in emergency-department visits, hospitalizations, and admissions to substance-abuse treatment centers at a time when our healthcare system is already strained.
According to a recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2016), approximately one individual out of five patients established with a pain-related conditions, is recommended to use opioids for their pain. This practice has continued with time increasing the levels of opioid use among different patients. Medical practitioners have contributed largely to the increase of opioid usage because they are the ones who prescribe these drugs mostly to the patients. However, they have established a major challenge facing them on the prescription of these drugs, as there is a confluence of pain control versus the danger of misuse of such prescriptions. These facts have increased the need to curb this situation before it becomes impossible to deal
Since hospitals and physicians can be rated, there is constant stress put upon keeping the patient happy and satisfied. Hospitals also receive some incentives from The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services based on these surveys (Stat News). Because of this, it is not surprising that hospitals tell their physicians to prescribe opioids and other drugs to satisfy the unrealistic expectation that the patients should feel no pain, even if it is unsafe as it can lead to abuse. Here is where many blame physicians for the epidemic of painkiller abuse. Many argue that physicians should do what is best for the patients and not prescribe such dangerous drugs.
Dependence on prescription opioids can stem from treatment of chronic pain and in recent years is the cause of the increased number of opioid overdoses. Opioids are very addictive substances, having serious life threatening consequences in case of intentional or accidental overdose. The euphoria attracts recreational use, and frequent,
According to Michael Klein, “The most prescription drugs that are commonly misused are opioids, tranquillizers, sedatives, and hypnotics.” Unintentional overdose deaths involving opioid pain relievers have quadrupled since 1999 and have outnumbered those involving heroin and cocaine since 2002. (Klein). The reason some people abuse opioids is just to “get high”.
Although, they are doing what they love to do, they lack sleep because of their long hours. Which then can possibly lead to depression. Depression effects their body’s physical health as well as their mental health. Physically, depression effects the nurse because it zaps their energy which causes them to not want to verbally communicate with the patient. Mentally, depression can make one suicidal, it could also cause the nurse to want to do self-harm and take pills due to the access they have with pills.
Nurses fatigue is growing problem nurse face each day in the healthcare environment, and he can be caused by long hours, sleep deprivation, and possibly by accepting extra assignments can be dangerous for both nurses and patient. These inadequacies can result in major implications for the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care which can lead to fatalities. (American Nurses Association, 2014). In my experience, being fatigued from working much 12-hour shifts consecutively was very difficult as I felt extremely tired, resulting in lack of focus, missing important details during the handing over the process with impaired cognitive functioning. This I found was detrimental to the patients and myself as it impedes quality and has a deleterious effect on patient safety.
This study was conducted to see if there really is a link between substance abuse and stress. A lot of people believe these two correlate to one another because of the self- medication theory. This states that “a dually diagnosed person often uses the abused substance to cope with tension associated with life stressors or to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression resulting from a traumatic event” (Goeders, 2003). So these people tend to turn to drugs and other harmful things in order to deal with what is going on in their lives.