Alcoholism remains one of the most serious challenges that the American healthcare systems grapples with. Today, millions of people are struggling with alcoholism and many of the interventions that have been implemented have failed to deliver any significant impact. It is therefore critical for the nursing community to take the lead in identifying and implementing approaches which show promise in alleviating the suffering and burden shouldered by alcoholics. Mental health assessment and intervention is one of the approaches which have been shown to play a critical role in lowering the risk of admission and facilitating the recovery from alcoholism. Nurses should be aggressive in their integration of this intervention into their treatment of alcoholics.
PICOT Question and Significance
As part of efforts to identify how mental health assessment and intervention contributes to alcoholism eradication efforts, a PICOT question was developed. This question read as follows: Does including mental health assessment and intervention by emergency department nurse to alcohol dependent patient decrease their readmission rate in the hospital within six months in comparison with the patient without mental health-related assessment and intervention? This question indicates that mental health services could prove effective in tackling alcohol dependency. Its significance cannot be overstated. By answering this question, nurses are able to confirm that mental health interventions are indeed vital in the fight against alcoholism. Furthermore, the question can guide efforts to integrate mental health services into nursing practice. Overall, the PICOT question is significant because it challenges nursing practitioners to develop a more holistic view of healthcare if they are to be successful in preventing the admission of alcohol dependent patients.
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Summary of Findings
An extensive review of journal articles was conducted with the goal of establishing the impact of mental healthcare on the experiences of patients struggling with alcohol addiction. The main theme that emerged from the articles is that there is a range of mental health approaches and interventions that nurses can adopt. For example, Kaner (2018) found that counseling helps patients to consume alcohol in lower amounts. The observation that Kaner made is significant as it highlights the effectiveness of such mental health practices as counseling. When nurses speak with patients about the dangers of alcoholism, they inspire the patients to strive for sobriety and an end to their alcohol dependency. Mundt et al. (2012) are other scholars whose work was consulted. According to these researchers, the 12-step program helps alcohol dependent individuals to make healthier choices and enables healthcare providers to reduce the cost of providing care. Mundt and his colleagues essentially suggest that mental health interventions present benefits to both patients and providers. Yeh et al. (2017) confirmed that mental health services are indeed essential in the war on alcohol dependency. After conducting a rigorous study, they concluded that psychoeducational programs inspire patients to abandon their destructive behaviors. Basically, Yeh and his team make it clear that by educating patients, nurses set the patients on a path that leads to sobriety and health. Patient education and counseling are some of the nursing practices that emerged from the literature as being effective. These practices indicate that nursing practitioners have an important role to play in eliminating the problem of alcoholism and minimizing the number of patients admitted for alcohol-related problems.
Contribution of Practice to Better Outcomes
Research is useless unless it presents implications for practice. This is why it is important to examine the contributions that the interventions discussed above make to improved patient outcomes. As noted above, counseling is among the mental health interventions whose effectiveness has been established. Counseling plays a number of important roles which include encouraging the patient’s family to offer full support and to participate in the treatment process (McCrady et al., 2016). A patient who enjoys the support of their family is more likely to find success in their quest to abandon alcohol. Another role that counseling plays is that it helps the nurse practitioner to develop a close relationship with the patient. This relationship is important as it cultivates trust and facilitates partnership. When the nurses and the patient work together, the likelihood of admission is reduced significantly. In order to understand the importance of counseling, one should consider what would happen if providers fail to adopt this intervention. High costs, overcrowded hospital rooms, and patient deaths are just some of the adverse outcomes that are likely to occur as a result of failure to integrate counseling and other mental health approaches into the treatment of alcohol dependence.
Evidence Dissemination Strategy
Once they have conducted research, nurses need to share their findings with their colleagues. This is the essence of dissemination. The main function of dissemination is to fuel the diffusion of information and to encourage the transition from evidence to practice (Wilson et al., 2010). The main dissemination method that will be used to communicate the effectiveness of the mental health interventions is a policy brief. In this brief, the benefits of the interventions will be identified and a call will be issued for nurses and other practitioners to incorporate mental health approaches. Poster presentations and newsletters will be used to supplement the policy brief. To expand the dissemination even further, conference presentations and social media posts will also be employed. Combined, the different dissemination methods will carry the message of the effectiveness of mental health services to as many practitioners as possible.
While it is important, dissemination is not sufficient in driving evidence-based practice. Practitioners need to take practical steps to ensure that an intervention becomes part of practice. In order to make mental assessment and interventions part of practice, efforts will be dedicated to creating a policy which stipulates that the assessment and interventions are mandatory. By mandating nursing practitioners to embrace the interventions, the uptake of mental health approaches is likely to be accelerated. It is likely that the interventions will be met with opposition and resistance from colleagues. So as to secure buy-in and the collaboration of all stakeholders, a sensitization campaign will be implemented. The purpose of this campaign will be to highlight why mental assessment and interventions are needed and to issue a warning regarding the damage that could result if the interventions are not adopted. When those opposed to the interventions are led to understand the benefits, they are more likely to abandon their hostility and support the implementation of the interventions. To address concerns raised by opponents, light will be shed on the many benefits of the interventions and to assure these individuals that the implementation of intervention will help the organization to minimize the number of patients who are admitted.
In conclusion, nurses are among the practitioners who are committed to eradicating alcohol dependence. However, these practitioners do not have a full understanding of the interventions that work. This is why research is needed. Researchers have established that mental health services enable nurses to walk with alcohol-dependent patients toward recovery. Counseling and patient education are among the specific approaches whose effectiveness has been proven. Nurses should be in the forefront of challenging the entire medical community to embrace these interventions. As they encourage the adoption of mental assessment and intervention, nurses will be serving a critical function in the campaign to eliminate alcohol dependence.
References
Kaner, E. F. (2018). Effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions in primary care populations. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , (6). Retrieved from Walden University Online Library.
McCrady, B. S., Wilson, A. D., Munoz, R. E., Fink, B. C., Fokas, K., & Borders, A. (2016). Alcohol-focused behavioral couple therapy. Family Process, 55 (3), 443-59.
Mundt, M. P., Parthasarathy, S., Chi, F. W., Sterling, S., & Campbell, C. I. (2012). 12-Step participation reduces medical use costs among adolescents with a history of alcohol and other drug treatment. Drug And Alcohol Dependence , 126 (1–2), 124–130. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.05.002
Wilson, P. M., Petticrew, M., Calnan, M. W., & Nazareth, I. (2010). Disseminating research findings: what should researchers do? A systematic scoping review of conceptual frameworks. Implementation Science. DOI: 10.1186/1748-5908-5-91
Yeh, M., Tung, T., Horng, F., & Sung, S. (2017). Effectiveness of a psychoeducational program in enhancing motivation to change alcohol ‐ addictive behavior. Journal of Clinical Nursing , 26 (21–22), 3724–3733. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1111/jocn.13744
