Marwa Abdel-fatah Zewiel¹, Amal Ebrahim Sabra^1,, Hala Ahmed El Sayes¹, Mai Abdel-Raouf Essa²

Nurses are the forefront health care members working in close proximity to substance use disorder (SUD) patients. They remain the most important persons in providing caring for these patients and they play the pivotal caregiving role for them. To do this important role, nurses need to have good knowledge, positive attitude and caring behaviors toward those patients. Aim of the study: This study was aimed to evaluate the effect of educational caring program on the nurses’ attitude and their perception of caring behavior toward patients with substance use disorder. Subjects of study: sample consisted of 50 nurses who were chosen by convenient sampling. A quasi-experimental design was utilized. Setting of the study: - The study was conducted at Shopra kas center for addiction, the center is affiliated to the General Secretariat of Mental Health. Tools of the study: Two tools were used for data collection; Substance Abuse Attitudes Survey (SAAS) designed to measure nurses' attitudes towards substance use disorder and Caring Behavior Assessment Tool (CBA) aimed to assess nurse' perception regarding caring behavior toward substance use disorder patients. Result of the study: The results revealed that there was statistically significant improvement in the studied nurses’ attitude and perception of caring behavior regarding substance use disorder patients after implementation of educational caring program. Conclusion and recommendation: The study concluded educational caring program was enhancing the studied the nurses’ attitude and their perception of caring behavior toward substance use disorder patients. According to these results, up-to-date in-service training programs on regular basis for nurses' dealing with SUD patients about attitude and caring behavior skills is recommended.

nursing attitude, nursing perception, caring behavior, substance use disorder