Abstract
Smoking cessation interventions during routine clinical encounters by health professionals have the potential to reach smokers and facilitate cessation. Although psychologists might appear to be ideal providers of such interventions, international research suggests that their provision is limited. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted in NSW, Australia, of psychologists’ (n = 72) smoking intervention practices, attitudes, and barriers to providing such care. Less than half of the respondents reported assessing smoking status for ‘all or nearly all’ of their clients. Across a range of smoking cessation intervention types, the most frequent response given indicated provision to ‘none or almost none’ of clients who smoked. Only 13% of respondents indicated even ‘advising cessation’ to ‘all or nearly all’ of their smoking clients. Barriers included concern about negative influence on the therapeutic relationship, inadequacy of training and lack of confidence to intervene. Respondents were less likely to provide intervention for smoking than for cannabis, methamphetamine ‘ice’, and alcohol. The study suggests that the potential of Australian psychologists to assist smokers to quit is not being realised, and that there is a need to address the barriers to care provision.
Highlights
Despite substantial declines in the rate of smoking over several decades to a current general population prevalence of approximately 15% (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW] 2011), tobacco smoking remains the largest single cause of preventable death and disease in Australia (AIHW, 2011)
The value of all health professionals providing smoking cessation intervention is reinforced by findings which suggest that interventions by more than one type of health professional have the potential to substantially increase quitting and readiness to quit in the smoking population (An et al, 2008)
A meta-analysis examining the effect of type of provider on the effectiveness of smoking cessation intervention found that while interventions delivered by a range of health professionals were effective, intervention by psychologists was more likely to be effective than that delivered by any of the other health professional groups such as physicians and nurses (Mojica et al, 2004)
Summary
Across-sectional survey was undertaken, utilising a selfadministered questionnaire. Eligible participants were psychologists in one region of New South Wales, Australia, whose work involved clinical contact with clients, identified through membership of the local branch of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) (n = 122), and/or through employment within the local health service (n = 150).
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