Brief interventions for smoking cessation: A preliminary study on therapist self-efficacy and practice

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2011-08

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Abstract

Brief Interventions for Smoking Cessation: A Preliminary Study on Therapist Self-Efficacy and Practice

Previous research outlined in clinical practice guidelines for cigarette smoking patients indicates that brief interventions by health care professionals can change smoking behavior. It is well documented that cigarette smoking and psychopathology frequently co-occur suggesting that psychologists are in a prime position to help clients stop smoking. Despite the existence of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Treating Tobacco Use psychologists are reportedly reluctant to intervene due to lack of knowledge, training, and self-efficacy for conducting brief smoking interventions. This study addressed barriers to the provision of smoking cessation interventions by mental health care providers. Forty clinical and counseling graduate student therapists were assigned to either a group that was provided training or a control group who received no training until the study was completed. Repeated measures ANOVA’s revealed that the trained group became more familiar with brief smoking interventions and their skills for providing such treatments increased. Further, students’ perceived professional responsibility toward providing such interventions also increased, however, their confidence to provide such interventions only increased with clients who reported being motivated to make a quit attempt. The clinical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

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Brief smoking interventions

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