Addiction and Patient Care: A Novel Instrument to Assess Attitudes and their Change Across Treatment Among Impaired Professionals

Addiction and SUD occurs among healthcare professionals at similar rates to the general population, however their success in treatment requires consideration of workplace risks to patient care that might arise due to substance use. The development of the PCI allowed for novel insight into the attitudes of healthcare workers regarding addiction-associated risks to workplace performance and patient care, and can thus inform future SUD treatment approaches for this population.

The PCI questionnaire was designed in-house and consists of 8 items pertaining to work ethics, level of patient care, and workplace responsibilities. The PCI was administered to healthcare professionals receiving treatment for SUD at treatment entry, follow-up, and discharge. For each item, healthcare workers endorsed the degree to which their substance use affected patient care. Results from PCI scores and their change over treatment revealed a significant increase in awareness of addiction-associated risks among healthcare professionals.

For this project, my responsibilities included administering both the PCI and a general patient health assessment to individuals seeking treatment for SUD. These assessments were administered multiple times over the course of their treatment and their raw data was collected at each interval. Responsibilities also included literature review and data management.