This new joint paper by our Professor Stefano Occhipinti, published in Global Health Action under Taylor & Francis, addresses the issue of how smoking health professionals hinder optimal implementation of cessation support, aiming to inform policy and future research to better support smoking health professionals to quit.
Offering cessation support to health professionals who smoke to ensure optimal implementation of cessation support for patients is a key recommendation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Article 14 guidelines. However, direct efforts to support this population to quit are limited.
The research team synthesised the existing literature on the predictors and processes informing attitudes and beliefs about smoking health professionals' own cessation. The initial search yielded 120,883 articles, with 27 selected for synthesis. Prevalence estimates and predictors of smoking behaviour have remained the primary focus of smoking health professional research.
This study concludes that although cessation support is needed for health professionals who smoke, evidence for factors predicting quit success is limited. Future research should identify relevant predictors and test them using prospective research designs to clarify targets for change.
Open access to the article from HERE.
