A systematic nurse-led approach to withdrawal risk screening, prevention and treatment among inpatients with an alcohol use disorder in an ear, nose, throat and jaw surgery department-A formative evaluation

摘要

Introduction: Among patients with head and neck cancer comorbid alcohol use disorder is frequent which contributes to higher risk of developing perioperative alcohol withdrawal syndrome/delirium or delirium due to medical conditions. Although guidelines emphasize prevention and treatment of alcohol withdrawal in hospitalized patients, a validated systematic approach for management of these patients is still lacking. Our aim was to formatively evaluate our newly developed systematic approach in view of nurses' adherence to screening patients for regular alcohol consumption and managing their withdrawal symptoms using the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment of Alcohol Scale, Revised.