Introduction: Drug addiction is a chronic, recurrent disorder in which compulsive drug seeking and drug use continue despite serious negative consequences. Drug abuse causes major social and health problems for people and society in many countries. Drug addiction is a form of drug abuse that poses a challenge also for healthcare professionals. Purpose: We aimed to find out about the role of nurses in the treatment of drug addiction. We were interested in the tasks of the nurse practitioners in treating these patients and relieving their pain, as well as the nurses’ attitudes toward drug addicts and addiction. Methods: We used a descriptive research method and reviewed the literature. We searched for articles in CINAHL and COBIB.SI databases, the Nursing Review Digital Archive, PubMed and DiKul, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect. Reviewed articles are written in English, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian, and are no older than 10 years. Results: We found and reviewed six scientific articles. The results of the analysis show that nurses tend to have insufficient additional knowledge on the treatment and care of addicts. The lack of knowledge leads to relatively high levels of stigmatization, which negatively affects the care and well-being of patients during treatment. Negative attitudes and lack of knowledge also affect the treatment of addicts’ pain, which has been proven to be untreated. Discussion and conclusion: Nurses are essential in the treatment of addiction, especially important is their empathetic and professional attitude. Nurses play an important role in addicts’ involvement in rehabilitation, effective treatment and lifestyle change.
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