Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Nursing

Advisor

Mary M. Martin

Abstract

Over the past 2 decades, opioid use in the United States has taken thousands of lives, reached the level of epidemic in 2017, and has been an area of study among scholars. The problem is health care professionals, including nurses, lack training on how to care for people with opioid use disorder (OUD). Nurses are at the frontline of patient care and understanding the nurses’ experiences in the care of patients with OUD may help to improve the patients’ quality of care. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to develop an understanding of the experiences of nurses with various skill levels in managing pain while caring for patients with OUD in an East Coast metropolitan region. The theoretical underpinning for this study was Benner’s novice to expert theory, derived from the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. The research question focused on the experiences of nurses with various skill levels in caring for patients with OUD. Data were obtained from one-on-one Zoom interviews with eight participants and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results showed that regardless of their background levels, nurses’ face challenges and uncertainty managing pain and are unsure of how to care for people with OUD. Recommendations were made for future studies to develop guidelines geared towards teaching nurses how to assess patients for addiction and teaching patients with OUD about seeking help. The study findings could lead to positive social change by being used by health care administrators and schools of nursing to develop new assessment guidelines aimed at improving the care of patients with OUD.

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