opulation, although health professionals, as a group, are not in the higher levels of user groups in terms of overall substance abuse. Thus, while the frequency of substance abuse may be higher among health professionals than it is in the general population, the frequency of such abuse among health professionals is not nearly as high as that found among many other groups in the population (Council on Scientific Affairs, 1995).
Some researchers attribute the high incidence of substance abuse among health professionals to the stressful character of the responsibilities of the health professions. Thus, effective support and intervention programs for health professionals are required (Davis, 2003).
Almost one-half of the professional staff at the Cleveland Clinic report having experiences with one or more impaired coworkers over a 12-month period. Such a statistic, while alarming, does not mean that 50 percent of the professional staff at the Cleveland Clinic abuse chemical substances. Rather, the statistic means that 50 percent of the professional staff has had an encounter with another staff member who abused chemical substances at one time or another irrespective of the duration or relative seriousness of such behavior. As impaired health professionals are threats to patients, health care institutions, the health care system, their professions, and to themselves, however, substance abuse among the professional staff at the institution (regardless of the relative seriousness or the duration of such behavior) is an issue that demands attention. To the credit of the Cleveland Clinic, the issue receives high-level attention at the institution. When institutions either ignore such behavior or treated it in a casual manner community confidence and patient well-being are at risk, because substance abuse, more often than not, leads directly to the development of impaired performance among health professionals (Verghese, 2002).