title: Chemically dependent nurses: the trajectory toward self-annihilation.
abstract: Interviews and participant observation were used to generate a substantive grounded theory that explains the process of nurses becoming chemically dependent. Data collection included: reading 10 case histories of nurses who had appeared before the Board of Nursing because of a problem with chemical dependency; interviewing 20 nurses who admitted their dependence on drugs and/or alcohol and who were in the process of recovery; interviewing representatives of the Board of Nursing, Department of Professional Regulation, and nurse investigators; attending Board of Nursing hearings and meetings concerning nurses who violated the Nurse Practice Act; accompanying a nurse investigator on her rounds to do urine checks on chemically dependent nurses presently on probation; and observing meetings of a chemically dependent nurses' self-help group for a period of 1 year. Findings revealed that as a result of physical and/or psychological pain nurses who became chemically dependent embarked on a trajectory of self-annihilation. The stages and phases of the self-annihilation process are discussed.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology; D001519:Behavior; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D009293:Opioid-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011363:Professional Impairment; D011582:Psychological Theory; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology