Factors Associated with Public Health Nurses' Perceptions of Skill in Chemical Dependency Assessment and Referral

Abstract

A public health nursing agency initiated plans to develop a program to improve nurses' skill in obtaining and evaluating drug-taking behavior and to improve nurses' actual referral behavior. The first step in the development of the program was identification of factors associated with nurses' perception of their assessment skill and their actual referral behavior. Level of formal education and “personal” experience with chemically dependent, significant others were not associated with nurses' perceptions of assessment skills. Participation in continuing education classes or workshops, years since graduation, and “working” experience were associated with nurses' perceptions. When joint influences were examined, chemical dependency classes, “personal” and “working” experience and years since graduation were all shown to have independent effects upon nurses' rates of referral. The predictor variables accounted for 41 percent of the variance in the perception of skill model and 22 percent of the referral rate model. It is concluded that in addition to chemical dependency classes, experiential training is needed in the training of public health nurses.