[Clinical nurses attitude towards alcoholic patients].

This psychometric study aims to evaluate the attitudes of nurses working in a hospital network towards alcoholic patients. Research participants were 71 nurses from Public Hospitals in La Paz, Bolivia. Data were collected through the Seaman Mannello scale (Nurses' Attitudes Towards Alcohol and Alcoholism), which consists of five subscales. According to the research results, nurses agree that alcoholic patients' life in unpleasant, so that they are not their preferred patients. They believe these patients deserve nursing care like everybody else but disclose indifference towards feeling comfortable about this care, although they affirm their willingness to help the patient. Nurses perceive alcoholics as sensitive persons and think that alcohol consumption turns normal persons fragile and silly, which is risky since they conceptualize alcoholics as serious and unrecoverable patients. These data illustrate that the nurses' attitudes reflect their personal and professional context and probably their nursing education about this subject.