Aim: To evaluate changes in staff smoking rates following the implementation of Smoke Free Health Care, an innovative, changemanagement process that introduced a smoke-free workplace policy in the North Coast Area Health Service of NSW. Methods: Survey questionnaires were sent to all staff before and after the introduction of the policy. Return rates were 17.3% (690/ 3988) in 1999 and 25.4% (2012/7921) in 2007. Chi-square tests and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to determine differences. Results: Staff smoking rates decreased significantly from 22.3% to 11.8% (po0.0001). Smoking rates in 1999 were not significantly different to the state population's (22.3% and 24.1%, p ¼ 0.3), but were significantly different in 2007 (11.8% and 20.1%, po0.0001). Over a quarter (27.6%) of staff who smoked when implementation began quit smoking; more than twice the rate before implementation (12%, po0.0001). Conclusion: These changes in staff smoking rates indicate the effectiveness of a comprehensive change-management approach to implementing smoke-free workplace policy.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.