Women in recovery discuss parenting while addicted to cocaine.

Purpose: To identify what women recovering from cocaine addiction think is needed of them to be good parents.

Design: An exploratory descriptive design using in-depth, semistructured interviews, conducted in the woman's home or in a treatment center. Demographics and pregnancy history were collected during the interview. A convenience sample of 11 mothers recovering from cocaine addiction participated.

Results: Content analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Five themes emerged from the interviews: lack of structure, abandonment, impatience/anger, lack of parenting knowledge, and repeating dysfunctional patterns from family of origin.

Clinical Implications: Women addicted to cocaine who are parenting children need strong encouragement from the healthcare system to begin a recovery program and also to gain parenting skills. Discussions of child development and parenting stresses should be included during the recovery process from addiction because lack of parenting knowledge might be a major barrier for them. This study can help nurses to provide improved care for women who are parenting children while using cocaine or other drugs.