Although the majority of healthcare facilities are smoke-free, nursing homes are an exception.Healthcare workers are in general encouraged to make every effort to help tobacco users discontinue or modify tobacco use, however, reports from residents in a long-term care setting found that fewer than half of the residents who smoked reported receiving cessation advice from nurses (35.7%) and only slightly more (40%) received such advice from a physician. Nurses' self-reports of giving cessation advice in this same facility lagged behind professionals in other medical settings with just over half (54.8%) of licensed nurses and 34.6% of the nursing assistants reporting ever giving residents advice to quit smoking. These reports represent a missed opportunity for interventions and enhancing healthcare in long-term care facilities. The proposed study will build a database representing a national sample of nursing homes' tobacco policies and the healthcare staffs' prevalence of giving smoking cessation advice to residents living in these facilities. An examination of the healthcare staffs' (physicians, licensed nurses, and certified nursing assistants) attitudes toward smoking among residents, their tendencies to advise residents to quit in general and across numerous situations, the barriers that might deter them from and facilitators that might assist them in giving cessation advice, and their beliefs about resident smoking rates and readiness to quit will be conducted. In addition, differences in staffs' attitudes across smoking and non-smoking staff, job classifications, and those who do and do not report advising residents to quit smoking will be analyzed. Finally, logistic regression runs to determine which of these variables might best predict advice given by healthcare workers will be conducted. Residents in long-term care facilities interact daily with healthcare providers and are in a prime position to receive cessation advice and encouragement. Close living proximity, restricted mobility of many nursing home residents, safety concerns, and needs for assisted smoking present risks for smoking and non-smoking residents and staff. The proposed study, combined with future research examining the residents' views regarding cessation, will assist in the development of effective training programs to influence staffs' advising behaviors and ultimately impact residents' smoking.
| Watt, Celia A; Lassiter, Jill W; Boyle, Jennifer R et al. (2009) An examination of policies addressing resident smoking in nursing homes. J Am Med Dir Assoc 10:258-63 |
