Modeling Attitudinal Antecedents of Nurses’ Decisions to Report Impaired Colleagues

Abstract

Nurses whose professional functioning is impaired due to substance abuse represent a threat to the health and safety of patients, other health care staff, and themselves. The major means for identifying impaired nurses is nonimpaired coworkers. Yet, only 37% of nurses who have had experiences working with impaired colleagues reported them to supervisors. A cross-sectional correlational research design, employing structural equation modeling, was used to explicate the relationships among the latent attitudinal constructs: permissiveness, morality, treatment efficacy regarding substance abuse, and punitive attitudes toward impaired nurses. The influences of these attitudes on perceived severity of impairment in fictitious coworkers and subsequent intentions to report these coworkers to nursing supervisors were modeled in a sample of 126 nurses. Permissiveness and positive attitude toward treatment were significantly related to intentions to report nurses. Moralistic attitude was not related to intention. Moralistic attitude was, however, strongly associated with a punitive attitude toward impaired nurses.