OBJECTIVES: To identify the predictors of the nurses undergoing a Compliance Monitoring Program (CMP) for substance/drug abuse successfully and assessing the effect of these variables on the successful completion of program.  METHODS: This was a retrospective cross-sectional cohort study using the de-identified data from the Florida Intervention Project for Nurses (IPN). Status of CMP program categorized as ‘completed’ and ‘Incomplete’ formed the dependent variable. The independent variables were characteristics of the nurses - demographic (education, marital status), type of treatment employed, years of nursing experience, healthcare institutional setting that employed the nurses, healthcare specialty of nurses, diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-axes), lab results for presence of drugs, presence of substance related disorders (dependency, abuse), family history of biological, non-biological and mental diseases, lab test results during relapse, if aftercare is required at end of program, status of treatment at end of program, type of contract, reason for dismissal from program and whether individual treatment is required. Imputation procedures using the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation with maximum-likelihood estimation were employed to fill missing data. Statistical tests included descriptive analysis including chi-square tests followed by logistic regression (p<0.05).  RESULTS: All independent variables except family history of mental diseases were found associated with the status of the CMP. The stepwise logistic regression yielded only nursing experience in years, type of healthcare institution, specialty, nursing license and treatment (all p<0.0001) were found associated with the completion of the CMP at p<0.05. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing profession characteristics like healthcare setting, specialty and years of experience seemed to have a higher association with completion of the CMP for substance abuse.