Friday, 26 July 2019: 10:00 AM
Padma Ravi, MN
Faculty of Nursing-University of Windsor, University of Windsor/Windsor Regional Hospital, Windsor, ON, Canada
Teodora Gal, BScN
Faculty of Nursing, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
Samira Dauti, BScN
Univeristy of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada
Jelena Lastro, MN
Surgery, Windsor Regional Hospital, Windsor,, ON, Canada
Purpose: The purpose of this infographic is to define harm reduction and illicit substance use, highlight its impact on the Canadian healthcare system, and identify the implications for nursing practice. Illicit substance use in Canada is reaching crisis proportions affecting people from all socioeconomic backgrounds. The year 2016 has been the deadliest – 2,946 people in Canada died from an apparent opioid overdose. In Ontario, every day, two people die of an opioid overdose. Substance abuse costs the Canadian healthcare system eight billion dollars a year. The "war on drugs" approach and abstinence-only strategies have not been effective. Harm reduction is a public health approach which focuses on reducing the adverse effects of illicit substance use. As frontline healthcare workers, nurses play a crucial role in the implementation of this approach. Since harm reduction prioritizes safer consumption of illicit substances over abstinence, nurses are required to adopt a non-judgemental mindset in their practice.
Methods: Use of Plan - Do - Study - Act cycles to design an infographic after synthesizing the literature. In order to educate nurses on this topic, quality improvement science was used to design an infographic. Feedback was taken from various backgrounds in order to complete Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles. Themes and gaps were identified and presented in form of infographic which was submitted for evaluations to different professionals. Subsequent changes were made based on the feedback to display the content.
Results: Strategies to implement harm reduction are addressed at individual level, community level and at structural / organizational level. There is a need for universal unified approach for addressing harm reduction strategies by nursing bodies, and policy makers.
Conclusion: There is limited research on nurses perspective about harm reduction and the correlation between nursing practice and effectiveness of harm reduction strategies. There is a need for innovation to improve upon community based harm reduction programs and practices. More effective and efficient methods needed to intervene at critical times and avert missed opportunities.t do not show any significant savings to society at large.
