Nurses' perceived facilitators and barriers to assessing for alcohol use in Taiwan

Aims. To explore nurses' perceived facilitators and barriers to assessing for alcohol use in Taiwan. Background. Excessive alcohol use has been associated with health, social and legal problem. Helping health care providers to detect and treat hazardous or harmful drinkers is an important worldwide issue. Design. A cross-sectional design was used. Methods. Nurse participants (n = 741) were recruited from 10 randomly selected hospitals in Taiwan. In these hospitals, nurses were selected from the Emergency Department, psychiatric and gastrointestinal medical-surgical units where most patients with alcohol problems are seen. Data were collected by facilitator and barrier scales as well as a background information form. Results. Nurses identified the top facilitator and barriers to assessing for alcohol use as 'want to know if patients' drinking problems are related to their illness' and 'patients' purposefully conceal information', respectively. Older nurses and those with longer general clinical experience had more perceived facilitators to assessing for alcohol use. Nurses' perceived facilitator scores were significantly and positively related to their intention scores, whereas their perceived barrier scores were significantly and negatively related to their intention scores. In addition, scores for perceived facilitators and barriers differed significantly by nurses' education level, work unit, experiences with assessing for alcohol use and previous attendance at training courses for assessing alcohol use. Conclusions. Our results suggest a need to strengthen nurses' education and training on the assessment of alcohol use in Taiwan. Relevance to clinical practice. Education and training programmes should aim to enhance Taiwanese nurses' alcohol knowledge, to emphasise the impact of alcohol use on illness and treatment and to enhance nurses' perceived facilitators and decrease their perceived barriers to assessing for alcohol use.