This course was developed for undergraduate nursing students in the BSN program. While addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disorder, we have for too long treated addiction as an acute condition. This introductory course covers addiction models, including the medical/disease, psychological, moral, sociocultural, and biopsychosocial models. Students will explore harm reduction and abstinence philosophies to drug and alcohol use. In addition, students will consider the interplay between identity (e.g, race, socioeconomic status, gender) and addiction related outcomes (e.g, stigma, access to treatment). Students will discuss evidence-based methods for prevention and treatment as well as recovery movement and its implications for reducing addiction-related stigma.

This course was developed for undergraduate nursing students in the BSN program. While addiction is a chronic relapsing brain disorder, we have for too long treated addiction as an acute condition. This introductory course covers addiction models, including the medical/disease, psychological, moral, sociocultural, and biopsychosocial models. Students will explore harm reduction and abstinence philosophies to drug and alcohol use. In addition, students will consider the interplay between identity (e.g, race, socioeconomic status, gender) and addiction related outcomes (e.g, stigma, access to treatment). Students will discuss evidence-based methods for prevention and treatment as well as recovery movement and its implications for reducing addiction-related stigma.