Running head: PICOT PAPER 1. recidivism compared to no group therapy? Lara Hrynko. University of San Francisco

Transcription

1 Running head: PICOT PAPER 1 In middle-aged adults diagnosed with alcoholism does group therapy help reduce the rate of recidivism compared to no group therapy? Lara Hrynko University of San Francisco

2 PICOT PAPER 2 In middle-aged adults diagnosed with alcoholism does group therapy help reduce the rate of recidivism compared to no group therapy? Is group therapy really helpful? Some people can be quite doubtful to group therapy s actually effects. Others find it to be a wonderful and life-altering experience. The question is if it makes a difference in whether or not some adults diagnosed with alcoholism end up relapsing. This paper focuses on the set up of how one would go about answering this question. More importantly, why this question is applicable to those working in community and mental health, what exactly a PICOT question is and how it is the first step in finding the needed answers, how this applies to nurses in general and is within their scope of practice and the necessary background and foreground information needed to get started in answering the PICOT question. This semester in our clinical rotations, all junior one students are doing their community and mental health rotation. As part of the community health aspect of the rotation, we, as students, are assigned to work with patients who are typically of either lower income or homeless and tend to have an addiction to drugs and alcohol. This was something that we kept in mind when forming the PICOT question because we knew that no matter the outcome of our study, we would be able to apply it to our actual clinical experiences and truly help the clients and patients that we work with on a weekly basis, and in some cases finding or giving them the proper support that they need in order to succeed. With these thoughts in mind, our full PICOT question is: In middle-aged adults diagnosed with alcoholism does group therapy (such as a twelve step program) help reduce the rate of recidivism compared to no group therapy? The components of our question are broken down into the population, intervention, comparison, outcome, and time. Our population is mostly

3 PICOT PAPER 3 going to focus on middle-aged men and women diagnosed with alcoholism and who are currently sober. The intervention for this population is that these people are currently going to a group therapy, mainly Alcoholics Anonymous and other similar twelve step groups. For our comparison, or on the opposite side of the intervention, we will be comparing the intervention data to recovering alcoholics who do not participate in a twelve step group such as Alcoholics Anonymous. The outcome that we are trying to determine through the research of this question is whether or not going to these group therapies reduces the rate of recidivism or relapse in alcoholics. Due to the fact that people with alcoholism have a lifetime goal of staying sober, there will be no time period for this particular study. This clinical question is within the nursing scope of practice due to the fact that we do not at any point write any prescriptions or perform any doctoral procedures on the patient. This study is mostly observational which is perfectly within the rights of a nurse. As nurses, we have the ability to encourage the attendance of twelve step group therapy programs, or perhaps to set up a twelve step program for our clients to attend as well. If we were to do assessments of various patients with alcoholism, we could in a way measure the effect of group therapy on some clients versus the clients who do not attend group therapy. Overall, this question is well within the nursing scope of practice because we can take the information that we gather from the question and apply it to our daily knowledge and practice. In order to answer the clinical question and be able to apply it to our practice, we need some background and foreground information. The background information that is necessary to answer the question is mainly based on the target population of middle-aged adults with alcoholism. What we need to know is just how long they used to drink, how long they have been

4 PICOT PAPER 4 sober, whether or not they go to a group meeting and if they do attend one then which group it is that they attend. We will also need to make sure that the patients are either only alcoholics or if they are also narcotic addicts that they are going to a group therapy for that as well. What we need in terms of foreground information is whether or not the patients we follow end up relapsing or not. We would then need to find out if there was a correlation based on those who went to the group meetings and those who did not. This is the information that is needed in order to help get nurses started and answer their PICOT questions, more importantly it is the basis that will allow us to start answering how helpful group therapy and twelve step groups can be for recovering alcoholics and hopefully reduce their rates of recidivism. Maybe group therapy is not for everybody, but the best way for us to know for sure is to take our PICOT question and get started on the research.

5 PICOT PAPER 5 References Haber, J., & LoBiondo Wood, G. (2014). Nursing research: Methods and critical appraisals for evidence-based practice. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.