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Changing minds: A tobacco treatment best practice initiative for addiction professionals
Dan Steeves, Community Outreach Worker, Addiction Prevention & Treatment Services, Capital Health, Nova Scotia, Canada
Abstract
Canada has made great strides in reducing national smoking rates. Unfortunately, clients who access addiction treatment settings represent a disproportionately large number of those still smoking in Canada. Tobacco-using clients in addiction treatment settings suffer high morbidity and mortality and are more likely to die of a tobacco-related illness than anything related to their drug of choice.
While best practice tobacco treatment approaches are available, they are not effectively translated into practice within addiction treatment settings across the country. In other words, there is a "research-to- practice-gap". This gap has largely been explained in peer-reviewed studies as resulting mainly from the influence of contextual factors on policy development and implementation in organizations. Through the creation of tobacco capacity building programs and denormalization strategies within healthcare and addiction treatment settings, this research-to- practice gap can be eradicated; barriers to change can be reduced, staff and client education and training can be provided, and the review and implementation of mandated guidelines for policy and treatment can be established. One such tobacco capacity building program is the "Changing Minds: A Tobacco Treatment Best Practice Initiative for Addiction Professionals." Originally created as a Health Canada grant project, "Changing Minds" is an evidence based, dynamic and interactive presentation that outlines and challenges the contextual factors contributing to the research- to-practice-gap.
Sharing concrete collaborative strategies, the presentation seeks to increase the capacity of healthcare professionals to build a foundation in their own work setting for a complete tobacco control environment that is supported by effective tobacco control policies.
Biography
Dan Steeves, BEd, D.A.U.S., MEd (cand.) Dan is a Community Outreach Worker with Addiction Prevention & Treatment Services. Dan has partnered on a number of research projects and academic papers regarding the addiction to tobacco and was a presenter at the 2006 World Tobacco Control and Cancer Care Conference.
Dan Steeves
300 Pleasent St
Simpson Hall, Nova Scotia Hospital
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
B2Y 2Z6
Canada
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