Alcohol withdrawal
After the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns across the country, 60% of Americans had reported drinking more alcohol according to a Johns Hopkins-University of Maryland-Baltimore survey (NCDAS, 2022). This increase in the use of alcohol among Americans had impacted my practicum site in Sacramento in a way where more nurses had to care for patients experiencing alcohol withdrawal. This increase in patient acuity related to alcohol withdrawal caught many med-surge nurses off guard, as many of them were hesitant or afraid to use high doses of lorazepam or phenobarbital in order to better control withdrawal symptoms. Many of these nurses would revert to calling the rapid response team for help instead of following through with the facility’s alcohol withdrawal protocol. This was concerning because there seemed to be a growing disconnect between the expectations of the alcohol withdrawal protocol and what was actually happening with the increase in rapid response activations.
If you were the nurse educator in charge at this facility, how would you approach the education need for the med-surge nurses?
Would you focus your education aim on those in the nurse residency program or on orientation status if it was ideal?
Would you try anything different than from what you did with a Zoom PowerPoint presentation?
