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Objective: To determine the effectiveness of an intensive quit‐smoking intervention on smoking rates at 36 weeks’ gestation among pregnant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Design: Randomised controlled trial. Setting and participants: Pregnant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (n = 263) attending their first antenatal visit at one of three Aboriginal community‐controlled health services between June 2005 and December 2009. Intervention: A general practitioner and other health care workers delivered tailored advice and support to quit smoking to women at their first antenatal visit, using evidence‐based communication skills and engaging the woman's partner and other adults in supporting the quit attempts. Nicotine replacement therapy was offered after two failed attempts to quit. The control (“usual care”) group received advice to quit smoking and further support and advice by the GP at scheduled antenatal visits. Main outcome measure: Self‐reported smoking status (validated with a urine cotinine measurement) between 36 weeks’ gestation and delivery. Results: Participants in the intervention group (n = 148) and usual care group (n = 115) were similar in baseline characteristics, except that there were more women who had recently quit smoking in the intervention group than the control group. At 36 weeks, there was no significant difference between smoking rates in the intervention group (89%) and the usual care group (95%) (risk ratio for smoking in the intervention group relative to usual care group, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.86–1.08]; P = 0.212). Smoking rates in the two groups remained similar when baseline recent quitters were excluded from the analysis. Conclusion: An intensive quit‐smoking intervention was no more effective than usual care in assisting pregnant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to quit smoking during pregnancy. Contamination of the intervention across groups, or the nature of the intervention itself, may have contributed to this result. Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000929202.

BackgroundInterprofessional education (IPE) has been recognized as an innovative approach for the development of a collaborative, practice-ready health workforce, but is not used consistently in undergraduate health professional programs. We sought to explore the reflections of graduates on the IPE experiences they had during their undergraduate education and training. It was anticipated that having completed their pre-vocational education and spent up to two years working in a clinical environment, recent graduates would be well-placed to provide insights into the value of the IPE opportunities they had, and to suggest approaches for improving these opportunities in undergraduate programs.MethodsThis study was part of a larger research project (Interprofessional Education for the Quality use of Medicines; IPE for QuM) which used focus groups as part of an interpretive research design to inform other aspects of the research. Here, we report on focus groups with recent graduates recruited from area health services across Australia.ResultsSixty-eight recent graduates working in New South Wales, Western Australia, and Tasmania participated in 12 focus group sessions. In this paper, we report on new graduates’ reflections on their experiences of IPE as part of their university degree, as well as their recommendations to improve interprofessional education before graduation. The new graduates were unanimous in valuing IPE from their current perspective of being in the health workforce. Most IPE experiences recalled were regarded as positive, but those valued most highly were experiences that involved genuine engagement and opportunities to interact with students in other professions working on a relevant problem. Clinical placement was a missed opportunity with few structured meaningful interprofessional learning experiences. Surprisingly there was little social contact between professions in universities even when programs were co-located, thus reinforcing professional silos.ConclusionsThe graduates provided many insightful reflections about the value of university-based IPE and their preparedness for clinical practice. Although universally acclaimed as a "good idea" there is much room for improvement. We put forward a set of suggestions to improve IPE and guide the design of future IPE efforts.

Immersive cultural simulation experiences offer opportunities to enhance the cultural empathy of nursing students. This may in turn have a positive impact on their cultural competence and consequently the quality of care they provide to culturally and linguistically diverse patients.