Medical Student INtervention to Promote Effective Nicotine Dependence and Tobacco HEalthcare (MIND-THE-GAP)

Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland

Status: Completed

Conditions: Smoking

Treatments: Behavioral: Motivational interviewing

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02601599

REC1126

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background: Smoking counselling during hospitalisation with post-discharge follow-up increases quitting. However, provision of cessation care for hospitalised patients is suboptimal. Students are potentially an untapped resource for providing cessation advice, but no studies have investigated this.

Aim: To determine if medical students can encourage motivation to stop smoking (MTSS; primary outcome) in hospitalised smokers .

Design: 2-arm RCT Setting: RCSI (www.rcsi.ie) and Connolly Hospital (www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/3/hospitals/Connolly/).

Participants: Inpatient smokers. Intervention and procedures: 60 graduate medical students will receive standardised motivational interviewing training in the provision of cessation advice. Each student will be randomly assigned to counsel ~1-3 smokers each, including an individual in-hospital, face-to-face session and post-discharge phone counselling. Training and implementation will cover Sept-2015-May-2016. Smokers will be randomised to 'usual care' (n~90), or intervention (n~90, student-delivered motivational interviewing). A researcher will enable recruitment and follow-up, and conduct a qualitative evaluation of programme participants.

Enrollment: 67 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All identified inpatient smokers at Connolly Hospital.

Exclusion criteria

• Advised by ward manager that patient is too unwell or cognitively impaired, or otherwise unsuitable;
• Death during hospitalisation;
• Receiving palliative care;
• Under 18 years of age;
• To be transferred to another hospital;
• Not English speaking;
• Refusal to participate;
• Inpatient in psychiatric ward

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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67 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Motivational interviewing The medical student will deliver a 15 minute consultation with the patient. The goals of this consultation will be to enhance the patient's motivation and self-efficacy regarding quitting, educate the patient about effective behavioral and pharmacological cessation strategies, and collaboratively elicit a plan to stay quit after discharge. Patients will be offered the opportunity to receive a consultation from the attending physician to determine eligibility for pharmacotherapy. Patients who elect to receive this consult with have a coloured sticker placed by the medical student on the medical chart requesting a consultation.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Motivational interviewing

Usual care

No Intervention group

Description:

This group will not receive student contact, but may be counselled by the smoking cessation officer or other Connolly staff as per normal procedures.