Abstract
Background and aims: Awareness of and feedback on the results of clinical interventions help practitioners to evaluate and improve their practice. Our aim was to assess how accurately Stop Smoking practitioners report their clients’ short-term success rates.
Methods: Data from a 2011 survey of practitioners were used to gauge practitioners’ knowledge of their clients’ quit rates. To assess accuracy of reports, a separate sample was used that included practitioners who were registered with the NCSCT online knowledge training course (no requirement to have completed the training) and who were recorded in routine clinical data as having supported at least 12 quit attempts in the 6 months before course registration. Practitioners reported clients’ quit rates at the start of training; service records were aggregated to obtain quit rates for each practitioner. Quit rates from the two data sets were correlated and their means compared. Professional characteristics of included practitioners were compared to those of all practitioners registered for the training.
Results: Survey responses indicated that of 947 practitioners, 35.2% did not know how many quit attempts they had supported and 33.5% did not know the proportion of successful attempts. Mean quit rate reported during training (M=52.1, SD=17.7) did not differ from that in service records (M=50.8, SD=16.8, p=0.21) for 278 practitioners. Quit rates were correlated moderately (r=0.47, p<0.001). Included practitioners were more experienced and had had more previous training.
Conclusions: A considerable proportion of practitioners appears to not be aware of the outcomes of their clinical practice. Practitioners registered for training, who believe they can report success rates of clients’ quit attempts, report them reasonably accurately.
Methods: Data from a 2011 survey of practitioners were used to gauge practitioners’ knowledge of their clients’ quit rates. To assess accuracy of reports, a separate sample was used that included practitioners who were registered with the NCSCT online knowledge training course (no requirement to have completed the training) and who were recorded in routine clinical data as having supported at least 12 quit attempts in the 6 months before course registration. Practitioners reported clients’ quit rates at the start of training; service records were aggregated to obtain quit rates for each practitioner. Quit rates from the two data sets were correlated and their means compared. Professional characteristics of included practitioners were compared to those of all practitioners registered for the training.
Results: Survey responses indicated that of 947 practitioners, 35.2% did not know how many quit attempts they had supported and 33.5% did not know the proportion of successful attempts. Mean quit rate reported during training (M=52.1, SD=17.7) did not differ from that in service records (M=50.8, SD=16.8, p=0.21) for 278 practitioners. Quit rates were correlated moderately (r=0.47, p<0.001). Included practitioners were more experienced and had had more previous training.
Conclusions: A considerable proportion of practitioners appears to not be aware of the outcomes of their clinical practice. Practitioners registered for training, who believe they can report success rates of clients’ quit attempts, report them reasonably accurately.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | N/A |
| Pages (from-to) | N/A |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Smoking in Britain |
| Volume | N/A |
| Issue number | N/A |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 2013 |