Patient-specific academic detailing for smoking cessation: feasibility study

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Primary Care Medicine
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Smoking cessation remains a critical public health challenge.
• Effective interventions in primary care settings are essential for improving cessation rates.
• Patient-specific academic detailing (PAD) offers a tailored approach to support healthcare providers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the implementation of a patient-specific academic detailing (PAD) smoking cessation (SC) program.
• To determine the feasibility of this PAD SC program within a primary care setting.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive cohort feasibility study was conducted in Hamilton, Ontario.
• Integrated pharmacists received training and delivered PAD to prescribers (physicians, nurse practitioners) using structured education and materials.
• Feasibility was assessed against five predefined Canadian academic detailing criteria.

Main Results:

• The PAD SC program met all feasibility criteria, including training time, session duration, prescriber reach (78.1% at 3 months, 89.1% at 6 months), and patient referrals (11/FTE at 3 months, 34/FTE at 6 months).
• Training and intervention delivery were efficient, with median SC education time of 3.1 hours and PAD sessions under 30 minutes.
• The program successfully engaged a significant number of healthcare providers and generated substantial patient referrals for smoking cessation support.

Conclusions:

• The patient-specific academic detailing (PAD) smoking cessation program is feasible in primary care, meeting all management, resource, process, and scientific criteria.
• The findings support the successful implementation and potential scalability of PAD for smoking cessation.
• Further research is recommended to compare the effectiveness of PAD against conventional academic detailing methods.