The role of nurses in ensuring patients’ health is great, especially when it comes to opioid-related overdose and drug prescription overdose in general. It seems to me that a nurse is expected to verify a physician’s prescription and provide the corresponding teaching to patients. In other words, all the stakeholders participating in treatment should control attentiveness and accuracy in drug prescription (Milstead, 2016).
However, in case a patient is unable to dot it due to his or her physical or psychological condition, the role of a nurse increases as of the one who becomes the only advocate for the patient’s rights. It is important to accept the guidelines provided by The National Nurse Act of 2011 that “brings nurses to the forefront as the deliverers of the message of health promotion and disease prevention to every American” (Mills, 2013, para. 2). Communication of the importance of being attentive to one’s health will significantly improve health care delivery services and drug prescription appropriateness, in particular.
Social media may be negative for the issue of opioid abuse by facilitating this epidemic and providing inadequate information. Also, social networks may promote immense temptation among users by presenting the corresponding ads, communities, and experiences of others. At the same time, some credible websites such as the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) provide valuable information that may help patients to combat drug prescription abuse (“CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain — the United States, 2016”, 2016). Connecting patients and health care professionals, reliable social networks may serve as platforms to ask a question of interest and receive appropriate information on time, if used consciously.
References
Baron-Epel, O., Bord, S., Madjar, B., Habib, S., & Rishpon, S. (2012). What lies behind the low rates of vaccinations among nurses who treat infants? Vaccine, 30(21), 3151-3154.
Johansen, L. J., Stenvig, T., & Wey, H. (2012). The decision to receive influenza vaccination among nurses in North and South Dakota. Public Health Nursing, 29(2), 116-125.
Maguire, E. (2017). Ketogenic diet and epilepsy. Web.