Hi and a question about smoking.

[Jaynes73]

Hello everyone,

I've been looking in on this site throughout my training which is almost at an end. Great community with some super discussions, therefore i feel that perhaps a few of you may like to help me out.

I recently carried out a literature review to discover why many nurses do not advise or encourage patients that smoke to quit (my own observations). The research from last five years highlighted that nurses:-

Were reluctant to do this due to lack of education in approaching this topic.

Some believed that it was ineffective. (no confidence in the intervention)

Some stated that it wasn't appropriate (paliative care, mental health, etc)

Some believed that it took too much time. (we're busy enough already,right?)

Nurse's that smoke did not wish to be hypocrites.

And so on

So... i am going to put together an assignment to change practice (theoretically) and encourage nurses to help patients quit (if the patient is interested, of course). Further research states that smoking cessation advice in the hospital can increases a patients likelyhood of quitting by 5% and that is why i wish to write an assignment on this topic.

In essence, the question i propose is. If i worked on your ward and proposed that staff should encourage patients to quit smoking and offered to teach you how to do it, in constucted teaching sessions. what would you think? Be honest, i got big shoulders

Any thoughts at all would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Jason

[scrmblr]

I think it sounds like a great idea...

I advise pt's all the time to quit smoking. Usually in a friendly "hey man, you gotta quit that bad habit" kind of way. They all say that they know they have to quit, but have no real support. I would love to have a way to help them out.

[Jaynes73]

Thanks for that scrmblr. Yeah, i guess thats what a lot of nurses would say. We are after all caring people right? However the issue is taking it a step further than just advising, perhaps by having a bit more knowledge or being able to access smoking cessation specialists or printed info we could do a lot more for patients interested in quitting.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

It is a great idea but does it have to be a RN that does it? I know some practices where I live it is the HCA that does the stop smoking advice and when I did work in the hospital I found I just didn't have time to advise in the way I would want to do it

[Fonenurse]

It's a great idea, and for those who are in hospital for quite some time, would possibly be effective, but to make it truly successful making it a multi-disciplinary project, with doctors prescribing nicotine replacement therapy, and other AHPs signing up so that everyone is sold on the programme.

What would you do for those on shorter stays - would you link with the primary care practices in your area so that they can carry on the support after the patients have left your care?

If I worked on your ward, I'd be signing up prompto!

[karenG]

great idea........

but remember about the cycle of change.. and that smoking is actually more addictive than heroin. Its actually very hard to support patients to stop smoking. you have to be in the right part of the change cycle to have any impact. so you need also to look at ways to assess if the patient is ready to give up and how you can support him/her in giving up.

personally... I'd see cigarettes made illegal!!! (but then I'm a respiratory specialist and hate/loathe/detest the things!)

Karen

[Jaynes73]

Thanks everyone,

This is great, its really neat to hear different ideas. A few answers to the points raised.

I have considered multidiscipliary team involvement and would offer the training to all staff, particularly HCA's.

I also considered the cycle of change and would intergrate this in training, nothing to deep but just to assess a patients readiness to quit if indeed they are.

As far as short stay patients, they would be offered contact advise for community cessation advisors, and 'perhaps' a follow up call a few days after discharge to see if they've made the step.

Ideally, all interventions would be documented, so when discharged there would be a record for GP's/Prac nurse to follow up.

What i'd really like to pry from you are reasons you may not want to take part in any educative programme to facilitate smoking cessation. So i can recognise these barriers and counteract them for my assignment.

Nice one folks,

Jason