Tobacco intervention practices of licensed psychologists

Abstract

Tobacco dependence is a serious public health concern. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a practice guideline of best practices to encourage all health care providers to intervene with tobacco-dependent individuals they encounter. Psychologists may be ideally suited to implement brief tobacco interventions due to their expertise in behavior change strategies and interpersonal counseling skills. This study sought to investigate current tobacco assessment and intervention practices and perceptions of responsibility for tobacco intervention among a regional sample of licensed, practicing psychologists. Results suggest that a majority of psychologists fall far short of the ideal best practices recommended in the practice guideline, and many are unaware of the availability of the guidelines. Further, psychologists in this study perceived tobacco intervention to be a greater responsibility of physicians and other health care providers than of psychologists and other mental health professionals.

Tobacco training in clinical psychology graduate programs.

“…These findings are consistent with prior studies that have reported only a small percentage of practicing licensed psychologists (11% to 17%) received any smoking cessation training in their graduate programs (Wendt, 2005;Zvolensky et al, 2005). Leffingwell and Babitzke (2006) reported that the Table 3 American…”

“…This finding corresponds to recent studies that reported that psychologists and psychiatrists feel unprepared and untrained to provide smoking cessation interventions with their patients, and that no tobacco assessment and/or intervention training was included in their graduate programs (Leffingwell & Babitzke, 2006;Price, Sidani & Price, 2007;Wendt, 2005;Zvolensky et al, 2005). Specifically, only 13% of clinical psychologists have reported receiving training or education on the current United States Public Health Service (USPHS) recommendations for smoking cessation (Phillips & Brandon, 2004).…”

Psychologists and Smoking Cessation Intervention: Unrealised Potential

“…It's low response rate, although comparable to previous similar studies (Leffingwell & Babitzke, 2006;Wendt, 2005), and limited geographical coverage limit the confidence with which the findings can be generalised. The study sample likely over-represents younger psychologists, who may be speculated to have been exposed to more training in regards to smoking cessation, and nonsmokers.…”

“…Potential barriers to the provision of smoking cessation intervention by psychologists have been reported to include: lack of training, lack of time, perceived costs of cessation intervention for the therapeutic relationship, perception that smoking cessation intervention is not a psychologists' responsibility or role, and beliefs that clients are uninterested or will be unreceptive to intervention (Akpanudo et al, 2009;Fiore et al, 2008;Leffingwell & Babitzke, 2006;Phillips & Brandon, 2004;Wetter et al, 1998).…”

“…Despite the potential of psychologists, and the existence of comprehensive evidence-based guidelines for providing smoking cessation intervention that might be adopted in psychological practice (Fiore et al, 2008;Zwar et al, 2005), research suggests that psychologists do not routinely assess the smoking status of their clients (Akpanudo et al, 2009;Leffingwell & Babitzke, 2006;Phillips & Brandon, 2004) let alone offer opportunistic smoking cessation intervention (Akpanudo et al, 2009;Hjalmarson & Saljoojee, 2005;Phillips & Brandon, 2004). Two studies undertaken in the US, suggest that intervention for smoking seems less likely to occur than intervention for the use of other substances such as alcohol and illicit drug abuse (Phillips & Brandon, 2004) and other health risk behaviours, such as unsafe sex, reckless driving, gambling and lack of physical activity (Phillips & Brandon, 2004;Wendt, 2005).…”