Smoking cessation support in a hospital-based healthcare setting: the provider perspective

Abstract

Background: Tobacco smoking is a major health threat, and smoking cessation support (SCS) is therefore important across all healthcare sectors. However, there have been few attempts to explore the SCS practice from the perspective of internal medicine-, surgery- as well as psychiatry-based healthcare providers (HCPs).

Aim: Our aim was to explore SCS among various professions of clinical HCPs within an entire hospital.

Methods: A total of 1645 HCPs (mean age: 44.3; mean healthcare experience 17.2 yrs; 85.6% female) at Lillebaelt Hospital, Denmark completed an online survey including questions on how often they 1) assess current smoking status, 2) inform about negative consequences of smoking, 3) advice smoking cessation, and 4) refer to smoking cessation programme. All questions were rated on 5-point Likert scales (‘Always’; ‘Often’; ‘Sometimes’; ‘Rarely’; ‘Never’). Descriptive statistics were performed.

Results: A considerable proportion (23.6%) of HCPs reported that they never or rarely ask patients about their current smoking status. Moreover, 42.5% reported that they never or rarely tell current smokers of negative effects of smoking, and 40.7% reported that they never or rarely advice smoking cessation. The majority of HCPs (60.7%) reported that they never or rarely refer current smokers to a smoking cessation programme.

Conlusions: Although smoking is a major health threat, SCS from a broad variety of hopital-based HCPs appears limited. Hospital visits often offer a window of opportunity for the initiation of SCS, and the potential of existing smoking cessation programmes is not fully exploited if eligible patients are not referred.