Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Browse

Medical student INtervention to promote effective nicotine dependence and tobacco HEalthcare (MIND-THE-GAP): single-centre feasibility randomised trial results.

Download (675.37 kB)
Version 2 2021-09-07, 15:41
Version 1 2019-11-22, 15:32
journal contribution
posted on 2021-09-07, 15:41 authored by Anusha Kumar, Kenneth D. Ward, Lisa MellonLisa Mellon, Miriam Gunning, Sinead Stynes, Anne HickeyAnne Hickey, Ronan ConroyRonan Conroy, Shane MacSweeney, David Horan, Liam W CormicanLiam W Cormican, Seamus SreenanSeamus Sreenan, Frank DoyleFrank Doyle

Background

Although brief cessation advice from healthcare professionals increases quit rates, smokers typically do not get this advice during hospitalisation, possibly due to resource issues, lack of training and professionals’ own attitudes to providing such counselling. Medical students are a potentially untapped resource who could deliver cessation counselling, while upskilling themselves and changing their own attitudes to delivering such advice in the future; however, no studies have investigated this. We aimed to determine if brief student-led counselling could enhance motivation to quit and smoking cessation behaviours among hospitalised patients.

Methods

A mixed-methods, 2-arm pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial with qualitative process evaluation enrolled 67 hospitalised adult smokers, who were recruited and randomized to receive a brief medical student-delivered cessation intervention (n = 33) or usual care (n = 34); 61 medical students received standardised cessation training and 33 were randomly assigned to provide a brief in-hospital consultation and follow-up support by phone or in-person one week post-discharge. Telephone follow-up at 3- and 6-months assessed scores on the Motivation to Stop Smoking Scale (MTSS; primary outcome) and several other outcomes, including 7-day point prevalent abstinence, quit attempts, use of cessation medication, and ratings of student’s knowledge and efficacy. Data were analysed as intention to treat (ITT) using penalised imputation, per protocol, and random effects repeated measures. Focus group interviews were conducted with students post-intervention to elicit their views on the training and intervention process.

Results

Analyses for primary and most secondary outcomes favoured the intervention group, although results were not statistically significant. Point prevalence abstinence rates were significantly higher for the intervention group during follow-up for all analyses except 6-month ITT analysis. Fidelity was variable. Patients rated students as being “very” knowledgeable about quitting and “somewhat” helpful. Qualitative results showed students were glad to deliver the intervention; were critical of current cessation care; felt constrained by their inability to prescribe cessation medications and wanted to include cessation and other behavioural counselling in their normal history taking.

Conclusions

It appears feasible for medical students to be smoking cessation interventionists during their training, although their fidelity to the intervention requires further investigation. A definitive trial is needed to determine if medical students are effective cessation counsellors and if student-led intervention could be tailored for other health behaviours.

Trial registration

NCT02601599 (retrospectively registered 1 day after first participant recruited on November 3rd 2015).

Funding

Funded by the RCSI Senior Management Team, who had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data or in writing the manuscript.

History

Comments

The original article is available at www.biomedcentral.com

Published Citation

Kumar A, Ward KD, Mellon L, Gunning M, Stynes S, Hickey A, Conroy R, MacSweeney S, Horan D, Cormican L, Sreenan S, Doyle F. Medical student INtervention to promote effective nicotine dependence and tobacco HEalthcare (MIND-THE-GAP): single-centre feasibility randomised trial results. BMC Medical Education. 2017;17:249.

Publication Date

2017-12-01

PubMed ID

29233157

Department/Unit

  • Medicine
  • Health Psychology
  • Public Health and Epidemiology
  • School of Medicine
  • Undergraduate Research
  • Graduate Entry Medicine

Usage metrics

    Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC