The addiction nursing workforce empowerment - from international perspective to the national implementation and bac

Background: The addiction nursing is on the rise in the Czech Republic. As a part of the efforts to strengthen the nursing workforce, an online course in addiction nursing was developped. The online educational course titled "Prevention of substance use in the general practitioners office: fundamentals of addictions, early diagnosis and intervention for the nursing profession" is a certified course for nurses that was created to fulfill the legal requirements for learning of nurses in the Czech Republic. The course aims to expand the knowledge, skills and competences of general and practical nurses in the prevention and treatment of addictions, support and motivation of people at risk of substance use and their relatives. The online course has been developed to ensure that nurses are able to respond to the needs of patients with substance use and to improve the quality of care for this target group.
Aim: The aim is to introduce the results of a pilot testing of a new addiction nursing coure. Objective is to assess the skills and attitudes acquired by addiction nursing students by completing an online course and to evaluate the quality of this online educational course.
Methods: A quazi - experimental research design was selected to test the effectiveness/efficacy of the course. The general nursing students will be divided into experimental and control groups and the results of both goups will be compared.
Results: The contribution presents the key findings of the pilot testing of an online course for addiction nursing stuents in the Czech Republic and introduces an international colaboration with the International Nurses Society on Addictions (IntNSA) and The Colombo Plan.
Conclusions: The evaluation and pilot testing are an essential step in developing evidence based educational activties. The pilot testing enables to provide a deeper understanding of the impact of the educational aktivity and students' needs. The international collaboration with professional organization intNSA is a vital step of further developing the educational activitites in addiction nursing in the Czech Republic and in providing evidence based education to addiction nursing workforce in the Czech Republic.