Computer-Based Program to Facilitate Readiness and Motivation for Smoking Cessation

Tobacco use is widely recognized as the most preventable cause of cancer in the United States. Furthermore, tobacco use is responsible for 30% of all cancer-related deaths in the United States. Although practice guidelines recommend that clinicians address tobacco use during all outpatient clinic visits, the realities of the clinic setting make this difficult for overworked and overstretched clinical personnel. A computer-based intervention may enhance patient care by decreasing this burden and priming patients and families for a discussion about smoking cessation with their physician. Previous research has demonstrated the feasibility of developing and implementing an interactive computer-based program to facilitate smoking cessation in the outpatient clinic setting. The program can be self-administered, presents minimal burden to existing staff, and meets the Public Health Service practice guidelines. Furthermore, this intervention was found to be effective at increasing readiness to change in parental smoking behavior. The overall objective of this proposal is to further develop the program and test this interactive computer-based program to facilitate motivation and readiness to cease tobacco use and engage in parental smoking cessation services. The current computer program focuses on the assessment of the participant's smoking behavior and the delivery of personalized feedback regarding their smoking behavior. Modifications to the new program will include the removal of the carbon monoxide testing, inclusion of all baseline and follow-up assessment into the computer-based program (creating a single, stand-alone package that further reduces staff burden), and the inclusion of a link directly to the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust "click to call" option (allowing patients to immediately self-refer for cessation support). Parents of children presenting to a general pediatric outpatient clinic, who self-report as current smokers, will be recruited for a randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of the revised computer-based program. It is proposed that exposure to this brief intervention will result in increasing smokers' readiness to cease tobacco use and engage in smoking cessation services. The successful completion of the proposed project will result in the development of a smoking cessation intervention that can be easily and consistently delivered, in a host of different settings, with little burden to existing staff. The successful development of such an intervention directly relates to the OTRC Mission and Goals and specifically fits with two of the OTRC's primary research areas: prevention and cessation of tobacco use and tobacco-related health disparities in Oklahoma's diverse populations and reduction of secondhand smoke exposure.