Accident and emergency staff nurse's knowledge of alcohol brief interventions for harmful and hazardous drinkers

Background: Within the United Kingdom (UK), Scotland has shown to have the highest alcohol consumption rate and as a result of such high alcohol consumption - and drinking at harmful and hazardous levels - 25 people die in Scotland each week (Alcohol Focus Scotland 2013). In order to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed, within Scotland, the Scottish Government (2009) introduced alcohol brief interventions within accident and emergency (A&E) departments, which have been shown to reduce both hospital readmissions and costs to the National Health Service (NHS) (Beeston et al. 2012). Therefore, it is necessary to ascertain what knowledge A&E staff nurses have regarding ABIs to ensure that A&E staff nurses are following the ABI process with any hazardous or harmful drinkers admitted to the A&E department. Aims: As a result of reviewing the literature, the research proposal aims to describe A&E staff nurses knowledge regarding the ABI process, to identify whether or not A&E staff nurses can recognise the main stages of an ABI and to determine whether or not further education and training is required for A&E staff nurses in order to meet their learning needs. By doing so, this would help to ensure the continuous implementation of evidence based care for both harmful and hazardous drinkers. Methods: The proposed research study will adopt a quantitative approach, using a descriptive survey design in order to achieve the studies aims. The survey will include an online questionnaire which will be made accessible to all A&E staff nurses within NHS Lothian who meet a certain inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data collected would be analysed using descriptive statistics including the frequencies and medians of the data collected.bsc_Nurunpub1430_ethesesunpu