Nursing Students' Attitudes Toward Women With Maternal Substance Use Disorders.

BACKGROUND

Maternal substance use disorders (SUD) have challenged relationships between women with SUD and their nurses. Nurses have reported biased attitudes toward women with SUD, which can interfere with their care. However, it is not well known how nursing students perceive women with SUD and their infants. This article describes nursing students' attitudes toward women with SUD, which can be used to inform educational strategies.

METHOD

An inductive content analysis was used to analyze 76 reflection papers written by nursing students at a midwestern university.

RESULTS

Three main themes were identified: (1) stigma toward women with SUD; (2) concerns for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome; and (3) influence of clinical experiences on attitudes toward women with SUD.

CONCLUSION

Nursing students need more evidence-based guidance on managing their biases as well as the biases of nurses who work in maternity settings. .