Smoking Cessation Counseling Training for WIC Nurses

Abstract

<p>Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. An estimated 40 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2012), furthermore, nearly seventy percent of adults that smoke want to quit (World Health Organization [WHO], 2011). Unfortunately, pregnant women make up part of this tobacco using population. Women Infants and Children (WIC) clinics are located all over the United States and attempt to help women and their children from a low socio-economic status (SES) with nutrition and overall well-being. Since smoking during pregnancy leads to multiple preventable complications, it is of vital importance that nurses are able to assess and refer clients’ to appropriate cessation resources (Tobacco Free Kids, 2015). The PICOT question for this scholarly project is: <em>For the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nurses at the Livingston County Public Health Department, does the implementation of a "brief intervention and referral to treatment" training program and staff mentoring lead to improved knowledge, confidence and increased rates of performing brief interventions with clients and an increased number of tobacco interventions provided to women who smoke?</em></p> <p>The Livingston County, Michigan WIC staff were trained and mentored on brief interventions for smoking cessation, also known as the 5 A Model (Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, and Arrange) (“Treating Tobacco Dependence”, 2008). The results of this project indicated that nurses’ knowledge, confidence and follow-up were increased with statistical significance compared to the data pre-intervention. While the findings are not generalizable, they could be transferable at the microsystem level to other WIC clinics.</p>