Effect of Nurses' Attitudes toward Alcoholism on Their Referral Rate for Treatment

Abstract

The attitudes of 27 industrial nurses at Ford's Rouge Plant were determined by use of a questionnaire. The score on the questionnaire was correlated to the number of referrals each nurse had made to the company's Employee Recovery Program during a two-year span. A positive correlation of + .54 was found. A comparison of high referral nurses to low referral nurses found major differences between the two groups in the response to some of the items on the instrument. High referral nurses reported more experience with alcoholics in their family. Low referral nurses had some of the same stereo-types that previous researchers have found. Recommendations for improvement are given.