Queensland smoking care in adult acute mental health inpatient units: Supporting practice change

Objective: To review a clinical practice improvement approach to statewide implementation of smoking care in adult acute mental health inpatient units across public mental health services in Queensland. Method: Queensland public mental health services, with adult acute inpatient units, joined a statewide collaborative to work together to increase the routine screening of smoking and delivery of a Smoking Cessation Clinical Pathway brief intervention to identified smokers. Results: Over a 2-year period, statewide improvements were demonstrated in the recording of smoking status (88–97%) and in the provision of a brief smoking cessation intervention to smokers (38–73%). In addition, all individual mental health services increased the delivery of a brief intervention to identified smokers and the recording of smoking status either improved or remained at high levels. Conclusion: Smoking remains an ongoing challenge for mental health services and one of the most important physical health issues for people living with a mental illness. The ability to implement statewide smoking care in public mental health services is an important step in shifting poor health outcomes. The clinical practice change approach adopted in Queensland has demonstrated encouraging outcomes in improving the delivery of smoking care that has been sustained over a 2-year period.