The drug-seeking health-care professional

Abstract

The potential for addiction among health-care providers, especially anesthesia care providers, represents a significant source of morbidity and mortality and increases the potential for patient harm. Although the incidence of alcoholism and other forms of impairment such as mental illness are similar to other professions, anesthesia personnel have a higher rate of substance use disorders [1]. It is difficult to gather reliable statistics on drug use among health-care providers for reasons of confidentiality, denial, misdiagnosis, or deliberate error. Records can be examined to look for evidence, such as disciplinary actions or mortalities, but there is still no guarantee that all such cases are reported. Because of this, it had been assumed that the true prevalence of addiction in health-care professionals could not be known [2]; however, it is estimated that between 13 and 17% of this population will, at one time or another, be substance abusers [3].