Clinician Telephone Training to Reduce Family Tobacco Use: Analysis of Transcribed Recordings

Family tobacco use and exposure are significant threats to the health of children and their families. However, few pediatric clinicians address family tobacco use and exposure in a routine and effective manner. The Clinical Effort Against Secondhand Smoke Exposure (CEASE) intervention was developed to tackle this gap between clinical need and clinical practice.

To review the main considerations and questions that clinicians and office staff expressed during telephone training to participate in CEASE.

This study was conducted in pediatric practices in 5 US states. Practices were recruited by the American Academy of Pediatrics (10 intervention, 10 control). Ten training calls were recorded and transcribed. The data was then coded inductively based on themes found in the transcripts.

The data revealed that clinicians and staff were concerned about prescribing, dosing, and insurance coverage of nicotine replacement therapy; motivation for and methods to help families become tobacco-free; and the impact of the intervention on practice operations.

While the majority of clinicians and office staff were interested and enthusiastic about helping families become tobacco-free, they expressed concerns that could threaten implementation of family tobacco control strategies.