ENHANCING NURSING COMPETENCE WITH SUBSTANCE-ABUSING CLIENTS

Alcohol and other drug abuse, major threats to health, pose challenges for nurses in virtually every practice setting. Progress toward incre asing nursing competence in the addictions field is being made through the development of practice standards and model curricula and through federal initiatives to increase faculty expertise in this field. The next critical step is to forge creative collaborative links with pract ice settings, links that assure that requisite learning is reality-bas ed and in step with the future of health care. This article outlines p rogress toward improving nursing competence in substance abuse and sug gests reality-based learning strategies as a future direction for this important goal for nursing education. Two successful models of collab oration between education and practice, designed to augment basic curr iculum and improve nursing knowledge, skills and attitudes related to substance abuse, are described.