This study describes a survey of Ohio community mental health center psychiatrists' perceptions and practices regarding smoking cessation activities using the 5A's method of smoking cessation. Of the 150 psychiatrists surveyed, 80 (53%) were returned. The majority of psychiatrists reported asking their patients about cigarette smoking status as well as giving advice to quit. However, the practice of actually facilitating quit attempts (i.e. with social support, nicotine replacement therapy, referrals, and follow-up visits) was lacking. This demonstrates that although cigarette smoking in individuals with mental illness is recognized as a major problem by adult psychiatrists, too little is being done to adequately address the issue.
The intent of this srudy was to obtain data on elderly persons' beliefs and knowledge of Alzheimer's disease. Participants were 148 elderly subjects (M age of 70.9 yr.) who responded to an Alzheimer's disease survey consisting of 20 knowledge questions, two belief questions, and one question on sources of Alzheimer's information. Chi-squared analysis of perceived susceptibility to Alzheimer's and belief about developing Alzheimer's, when compared to education and having a friend or relative with the disease, indicated no significant differences. Analysis of variance of education and having a friend or relative with Alzheimer's by the respondents' knowledge of Alzheimer's did yield significant differences. Only 8 of the 20 knowledge questions were correctly answered by 50% or more of the respondents. Finally, the four most commonly identified sources of information on Alzheimer's were television, articles, friends, and talks. Over-all, the respondents (70%) did not believe they were suscepuble to Alzheimer's although the majority ( 8 4 % ) were, either concerned, worried, frightened, or scared stiff about develop~ng the disease. The respondents' knowledge of Alzheimer's disease was poor.
A random sample of clinical psychologists was surveyed regarding their smoking cessation practices and perceptions. A total of 352 psychologists responded (57%) to the valid and reliable questionnaire. The majority (59.1%) of psychologists did not always identify and document the smoking status of patients. The majority reported high efficacy expectations (66.4%) and low outcome expectations (55.1%) for using the 5A's smoking cessation counseling technique. Counselors that had never smoked were almost two times more likely to have higher efficacy expectations than those that were current smokers or ex-smokers (OR = 1.94, 95% CI 1.18-3.12). The factors that predicted regular use of the 5A's included the number of identified barriers, psychologists' level of self efficacy, and the urbanicity of one's practice location.
This study provides evidence of the need to improve the education of psychiatric nurses as tobacco interventionists at both the individual level and the legislative and policy formulation level. J Am Psychiatr Nurses Assoc, 2008; 14(2), 117-124. DOI: 10.1177/1078390307311973.
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.