Enhancing Provider Delivery of Tobacco Treatment Within the Inpatient Psychiatric Setting

ABSTRACT

People with mental illnesses (MI) smoke at higher rates than the general population. However, few mental health providers (MHPs) deliver tobacco treatment to patients with MI especially within inpatient psychiatric settings. According to evidence, fewer than half of MHPs in the US mental and behavioral health settings provide the recommended evidence-based tobacco treatment interventions to their clients with MI. This paper uses the theory of planned behavior to examine factors associated with provider intentions to deliver and their experiences in providing evidence-based tobacco treatment to clients with MI. Data were obtained from a cross-sectional survey of 219 providers in a state psychiatric hospital in Kentucky. Attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control were associated with providers’ intentions to deliver tobacco treatment when controlling for demographic and work-related variables. However, only profession, subjective norms, and attitudes were associated with reported provision of evidence-based tobacco treatment. Given the underuse of routine tobacco treatment for this vulnerable population, understanding factors influencing provider delivery of tobacco treatment is needed to guide strategies for reducing the disproportionate rates of tobacco use and related burden among people with MI.

KEYWORDS:

• Tobacco treatment
• mental health providers
• mental illness
• theory of planned behavior

Acknowledgements

We want to acknowledge the staff and department managers at Eastern State Hospital for their support in study execution.

Author roles in research/writing of manuscript

J. Otachi wrote the manuscript with support from C. Flaherty. M. Otis guided the data analysis, reviewed the manuscript, and provided constructive feedback. C. Okoli conceptualized the parent study and provided constructive feedback that helped shape the analysis, results, and discussion sections. All authors worked on the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.