Knowledge And Attitude Towards Alcoholism Among Nursing Students: An Interventional Study

According to a global health report (2007), alcohol was responsible for 4% of the morbidity burden and 3.2% (1.8 million) of global deaths in 2000. Among the 26 risk factors assessed by W.H.O., alcohol ranked fifth in terms of risk factors for premature deaths and disabilities.Alcohol consumption has been steadily increasing in developing countries like India.Per capita consumption of alcohol increased by 106.75% over the period from 1970 to 1996 1 . According to current concept, alcoholism is consider as a disease and alcohol a “disease agent” which causes acute and chronic intoxication, toxic psychosis, cirrhosis of liver, gastritis, pancreatitis, cardiomyopathy and peripheral neuropathy, various cancers. Further alcohol is an important etiologic factor in suicide, automobile and other accidents, and injuries and death due to violence. The health problem for which alcohol is responsible are only part of social damage, which includes family disorganisation crime and loss of productivity. 2 Most of nursing students do not consider alcoholism as a problem or as a psychiatric illness.Nurses represent the main group of health professionals and experts have appointed their important role in the prevention, early detection and treatment of alcoholism 2,3,5,6 . There is evidence about the significant influence of these professionals’ attitudes towards substance misusers on their willingness to intervene and the quality of such interventions 4,5 . Research has revealed that nursing students have demonstrated negative attitudes towards substance misusers. It has also been observed that contact with these patients during education enhances students’ acceptance of misusers 4,6 .