Date of Award

Summer 2023

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

Faculty Chair

Cheryl Emich

Abstract

Background: Smoking is a habit of millions of Americans despite the associated preventable health issues and death that it produces. Smoking cessation programs, particularly those using pharmacotherapy, are effective in increasing smoking cessation rates. However, smoking cessation programs remain underutilized.

Purpose: The purpose of the DNP project is to educate providers on using the 2As and R (ask, advise, and refer) of smoking cessation to assess a patient’s readiness to quit and refer to smoking cessation counseling. For providers working in an urban pulmonary clinic, does education regarding the use of the 2As and R method as a standardized intervention to assess readiness for referral to smoking cessation counseling compared to no education regarding a standardized intervention increase the number of patients referred for smoking cessation counseling over eight weeks?

Methods: This is a quality improvement project using the 2As and R method of smoking cessation to improve referral rates to a pharmacy smoking cessation program. Providers in a pulmonary clinic were educated on the 2As and R method, the in-house pharmacy smoking cessation program, and how to place referrals to the program. Data was obtained from the pharmacy program coordinator and reviewed by the principal investigator.

Results: The pre-intervention rate of referrals to the pharmacy was 6.47% (18 patients out of 278) and the post-intervention rate was 10.91% (30 patients out of 275). Although there was an increase in referral rates post-intervention, this increase was not statistically significant. The increase does demonstrate clinical significance.

Conclusion: The 2As and R method of smoking cessation is effective in increasing the number of referrals to a smoking cessation program. The change was not statistically significant, however, the improvement in referral rates was encouraging.

Included in

Nursing Commons

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