DescriptionPurpose
Medical providers have the ability to influence patients' smoking status by performing the 5 A's. Therefore, a quality improvement project was implemented in order to improve providers' knowledge and practice of this clinical guideline by receiving training on the 5 A's.
Methodology
The project took place at a primary care office in Paterson, NJ. Providers (n=4) at the office received training on the 5 A's and completed surveys pre and post-intervention. After the training, 100 charts were randomly selected and reviewed to assess adherence of providers to the 5 A's.
Results
During the chart reviews, it was noted that 14 patients screened positive for tobacco use. The patients were more likely to be asked about tobacco use, advised, and assessed for readiness to quit than receiving assistance and arranging. A Wilcoxon rank test was performed to assess change in providers' knowledge and practice of the 5 A's pre and post-intervention. Even though the results were not statistically significant, the findings suggest that there could be a relationship between training clinicians on the 5 A's and an improvement of the providers' knowledge and practice of the 5 A's.
Implications for Practice
Primary care settings could use the methodology used in this project to assess adherence of medical providers to evidence-based smoking cessation interventions and to develop quality improvement initiatives in order to provide patients with high-quality care.