Research Horizons: Addressing the Needs of Nurses
SDSU nursing professor Amanda Choflet studies substance abuse among nurses, with the hope of one day creating interventions to reduce risky behaviors.
SDSU’s Research Horizons series highlights early career faculty and their burgeoning research projects.
Nurses are often the first clinicians patients meet during their health care journey — after all, there are three million of them nationwide.
Yet these critical health care workers, given the intense nature of their jobs, are often at increased risk for substance abuse, depression, anxiety and suicide, according to San Diego State University nursing professor Amanda Choflet.
Choflet studies substance abuse among nurses. She is developing a cross-sectional survey of nurses to assess their beliefs and behaviors around alcohol and drugs.
The data will be critical in helping understand nurses’ decisions around substance use, allowing researchers like Choflet to create helpful and effective interventions.
“Ultimately, the measures we take to heal the nursing workforce will be the model for everyone else,” Choflet said. “When we can address the needs of nurses, we will make the entire health care system work better for patients.”
