Mental Health Workers’ Views on Addressing Tobacco Use

Abstract

The rate of tobacco use amongst people with mental illness is still very high with serious social and health consequences. Mental health workers are uniquely placed to assist patients to quit or reduce tobacco use. This study has shown many workers believe that it is important to address tobacco use with their patients as part of routine care and that mental health services should implement significant tobacco policy and practice change.

Smoking Cessation Care Provision and Support Procedures in Australian Community Mental Health Centers

“…The low (34%) reported prevalence of providing minimal smoking cessation care to more than 60% of clients is consistent with previous studies of smoking cessation care in community mental health centers (13,14) and in general medical and psychiatric hospital settings (9,10). Most often, smoking cessation care was provided in response to client factors rather than systematically offered, a finding that was also consistent with previous studies conducted in mental health settings (10,14).…”

“…Most often, smoking cessation care was provided in response to client factors rather than systematically offered, a finding that was also consistent with previous studies conducted in mental health settings (10,14). Such findings suggest that the provision of smoking cessation care does not accord with recommendations that smoking be viewed as a chronic disease and treated as such through the opportunistic and systematic delivery of care to all smokers, regardless of the presenting condition or of client request (7,8).…”

“…Minimum acceptable smoking cessation care, a dichotomous variable, was defined as recording client smoking status and offering smoking cessation brief advice, referral, or both to more than 60% of clients (14). Pearson's chi square and bivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine univariate associations between the existence of supportive systems and procedures and the provision of minimum acceptable smoking cessation care.…”

“…An Australian survey of 324 mental health staff drawn from 45 diverse centersboth inpatient and community basedreported that only one-quarter often raised the issue of tobacco use with their patients. These discussions were most likely to take place in response to a specific health concern or if initiated by a patient (14).…”

What carers of family members with mental illness say, think and do about their relative's smoking and the implications for health promotion and service delivery: a qualitative study

“…Many researchers have examined smoking behaviours within mental health settings from the perspectives of health professionals (Ashton, Lawn & Hosking, 2010;Lawn & Campion, 2010, Lawn & Pols, 2005Wye, et a., 2010a;Wye, et al, 2010b) and patients Solway, 2011). However, people with a mental illness spend most of their lives, at home and in their community and many either do not access clinical mental health services or only access them intermittently (Lawrence, Lawn, Kisely, Bates, Mitrou & Zubrich, 2011).Therefore, the family interpersonal social environment of smoking for this population needs to be better understood.…”