Emma Croghan Director of Public Health and Lifestyle Services, North 51, Burton on Trent, Stafffordshire
Abstract
Background: The four-week CO-verified success rates of individual Stop Smoking Services (SSS) varies widely. Advisor personality may be one factor that explains this variation.
Aim: To determine if stop smoking advisors’ scores on major dimensions of personality were associated with clients’ four-week CO-verified quit status.
Method: QuitManager data from 1,958 treatment episodes completed by 19 stop smoking advisors in two SSSs were used in the analysis. Clients’ four-week CO-verified quit status was the outcome variable. Five dimensions of advisor personality, as measured by the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, were included as predictor variables: openness-to-experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism. Client (i.e. age, sex, ethnicity, medication use, social grade) and other advisor characteristics (i.e. age, sex, years of experience) were entered as confounding factors. Results: A multi-level random intercept model indicated that clients of advisors with a higher extraversion score had greater odds of being abstinent at four weeks (OR=1.15, 95% CI=1.03 – 1.18). None of the other personality dimensions were associated with client abstinence from smoking.
Conclusions: More extraverted stop smoking advisors appear to have greater success in advising their clients to quit smoking. If this finding is confirmed it could indicate useful areas to focus on in advisor training.
