Abstract
Integrating tobacco cessation interventions into substance use disorder (SUD) programs is recommended, yet few are implemented into practice. This translational research implementation study was designed to integrate an evidence-based tobacco cessation intervention into a 2-week hospital outpatient SUD program that served a rural municipality and 33 remote Indigenous communities. Objectives included determining tobacco use prevalence, intervention uptake, and staffing resources required for intervention delivery.
A series of 1-hr tobacco and health/well-being interactive education and behavior-change groups were developed for the SUD program to create a central access point to offer an evidence-based, intensive tobacco cessation intervention that included an initial counseling/planning session and nine post-SUD treatment follow-ups (weekly month 1; biweekly month 2; and 3, 6, and 12 months). Group sign-in data included age, gender, community, tobacco use, and interest in receiving tobacco cessation help.
Thirty-two groups (April 2018 to February 2019) were attended by 105 people from 22 communities—56% were female, mean age = 30.9 (±7.3; 93% <45 years), 86% smoked, and 38% enrolled in the intensive tobacco cessation intervention. The age-standardized tobacco use ratio was two times higher than would be expected in the general rural population in the region. Average staff time to provide the intervention was 1.5–2.5 hr/week.
Results showed that a Healthy Living group integrated into SUD programming provided a forum for tobacco education, behavior-change skills development, and access to an intensive tobacco cessation intervention for which enrollment was high yet the intervention could be delivered with only a few staff hours a week.
Barriers and opportunities for behavior change in managing high water demand in water scarce Indigenous communities: an Australian perspective
