Facilitating smoking cessation in patients who smoke: a large-scale cross-sectional comparison of fourteen groups of healthcare providers.

BACKGROUND: Although healthcare providers are well placed to help smokers quit, implementation of smoking cessation care is still suboptimal. The Ask-Advise-Refer tasks are important aspects of smoking cessation care. We examined to which extent a large and diverse sample of healthcare providers expressed the intention to implement smoking cessation care and which barriers they encountered. We moreover examined to which extent the Ask-Advise-Refer tasks were implemented as intended, and which determinants (in interaction) influenced intentions and the implementation of Ask-Advise-Refer. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey among addiction specialists, anaesthesiologists, cardiologists, general practitioners, internists, neurologists, paediatricians, pulmonologists, ophthalmologists, surgeons, youth specialists, dental hygienists, dentists, and midwives (N = 883). Data were analysed using multivariate linear and logistic regression analyses and regression tree analyses. RESULTS: The Ask-Advice-Refer tasks were best implemented among general practitioners, pulmonologists, midwives, and addiction specialists. Overall we found a large discrepancy between asking patients about smoking status and advising smokers to quit. Participants mentioned lack of time, lack of training, lack of motivation to quit in patients, and smoking being a sensitive subject as barriers to smoking cessation care. Regression analyses showed that the most important determinants of intentions and implementation of Ask-Advise-Refer were profession, role identity, skills, guideline familiarity and collaboration agreements for smoking cessation care with primary care. Determinants interacted in explaining outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: There is much to be gained in smoking cessation care, given that implementation of Ask-Advise-Refer is still relatively low. In order to improve smoking cessation care, changes are needed at the level of the healthcare provider (i.e., facilitate role identity and skills) and the organization (i.e., facilitate collaboration agreements and guideline familiarity). Change efforts should be directed towards the specific barriers encountered by healthcare providers, the contexts that they work in, and the patients that they work with.

Critical stakeholder determinants to the implementation of intersectoral community approaches targeting childhood obesity.

Several intersectoral community approaches targeting childhood obesity (IACOs) have been launched in the Netherlands. Translation of these approaches into practice is however arduous and implementation. We therefore studied the implementation of five IACOs in the Netherlands for one-and-a-half years. IACO implementation was evaluated via an adapted version of the MIDI questionnaire, consisting of 18 theory-based constructs. A response rate of 62% was obtained. A hierarchical multivariate linear regression model was used to analyse our data; the final regression model predicted 65% of the variance in adherence. Higher levels of self-efficacy, being an implementer embedded in community B, and having more than 1 year of experience with IACO implementation were associated with higher degrees of adherence. Formal ratification of implementation by management and being prescribed a higher number of activities were related to lower degrees of adherence. We advise that, when designing implementation strategies, emphasis should be placed on the enhancement of professionals' self-efficacy, limitation of the number of activities prescribed and allocation of sufficient time to get acquainted and experienced with IACO implementation. Longitudinal studies are needed to further evaluate interaction between and change within critical determinants while progressing through the innovation process.