Table 1 Focus group interview guide

(1)

Tell me about what you have experienced with respect to alcohol use in your patients.

Probes:

- What are the biggest issues and needs?

(2)

How is unhealthy alcohol use typically addressed on your units?

Probes:

- What formal protocols/procedures/pathways are currently in place? Do other informal processes/practices exist?

(3)

Who currently bears responsibility for addressing unhealthy alcohol use? What is nursing’s current role and set of responsibilities?

Introducing the idea of alcohol screening, brief intervention (BI), and referral to treatment (RT)

Viewing of 6-minute BI demonstration video [36]

(4)

Is there a role for this type of alcohol screening and intervention in the inpatient care setting?

Probes:

- What would it look like?

- How could it be incorporated into the inpatient setting?

--How might it need to be tailored/modified?

(5)

What do you see as the nurse’s role in alcohol screening, intervention, and referral?

Facilitators & barriers to performing alcohol screening, BI, and RT in the inpatient care setting

(6)

What are some of the potential facilitators of nurses doing alcohol screening in the inpatient setting, i.e., features of the inpatient setting, the nurse-patient relationship, your particular unit, or the VA in general that lend themselves well to alcohol screening for hospital inpatients?

(7)

What are some of the major barriers facing nurses when it comes to doing alcohol screening in the inpatient setting?

(8)

Let’s think about the facilitators and barriers to the next dimension of care, that is, brief interventions. What are the facilitators of nurses conducting brief interventions in the inpatient setting?

(9)

And what are some of the major barriers facing nurses when it comes to potentially doing brief interventions in the inpatient setting?

Probes:

- Other providers in other settings have reported:

   Lack of knowledge, skills, training, experience

   Lack of time, resources

   Role responsibility issues (not my role/job)

   Lack of role support

   Lack of colleague, administrative, institutional, clerical support

   Potential privacy issues/threat to patient-provider relationship

Don’t like these patients

(10)

Finally, are there certain facilitators and barriers to nurses making referrals to treatment in the inpatient setting?

Concluding questions

(11)

Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about today that you think is important for us to know? Is there anything you would like to add?