Viewing Study NCT00245323



Ignite Creation Date: 2024-05-05 @ 12:07 PM
Last Modification Date: 2024-10-26 @ 9:20 AM
Study NCT ID: NCT00245323
Status: COMPLETED
Last Update Posted: 2024-05-02
First Post: 2005-10-25

Brief Title: Checking Smoking Status as a Routine Vital Sign A Cluster-Randomized Trial of Its Effect on Cessation Counseling
Sponsor: Virginia Commonwealth University
Organization: Virginia Commonwealth University

Study Overview

Official Title: Does Checking Smoking Status as a Vital Sign Increase Physician Counseling A Practice-Level Randomized Controlled Trial
Status: COMPLETED
Status Verified Date: 2024-09
Last Known Status: None
Delayed Posting: No
If Stopped, Why?: Not Stopped
Has Expanded Access: False
If Expanded Access, NCT#: N/A
Has Expanded Access, NCT# Status: N/A
Acronym: None
Brief Summary: The purpose of this study is to determine if checking smoking status as a routine vital sign increases the delivery rate of cessation counseling to adult smokers in primary care practices
Detailed Description: Two national clinical practice guidelines CPGs have advised primary care physicians to implement an office-wide system for screening and recording tobacco-use status for every patient at every office visit These guidelines specifically recommended checking smoking status as a vital sign This tracking system is elegantly simple As a prompt for the physician the nursing staff records the patients response to a brief inquiry of their smoking status current former never with the other vital sign data

Scientific evidence that this measure increases physician counseling or smoking cessation is limited The proposed study evaluates the effectiveness of the vital sign intervention through a practice-level randomized controlled trial

18 practices will be recruited for the 9 month study Eligible practices will include primary care practices family practice or internal medicine with an average of two or more full-time equivalent providers including physician assistants and nurse practitioners not already using or planning to institute during the study period a practice-wide tobacco identification and reminder system and willing to participate in the study

Data collection will occur in two phases baseline and post intervention The purpose of baseline data collection is to provide a baseline counseling rate for each office prior to randomization

Over the course of both data collection periods research assistants RAs will visit individual practices on a rotating basis about 16 visits per site on average On average practices will be visited once a week during the baseline month and twice a month during the intervention phase The frequency of visits will be adjusted in an ongoing fashion by the PI as practices with a smaller number of providers a lower prevalence of smokers or a lower survey participation rate will necessitate proportionally more visits to keep data collection balanced at each site

The RA will recruit patients following their interaction with the provider to participate in a one page in-office survey Upon returning the in-office survey self-identified adult current smokers who visited a physician that day will be recruited to participate in a 4 page mail-back survey

Both surveys are anonymous A matching key code will be recorded on the returned in-office survey for those patients given a mail-back survey to allow linked analysis while maintaining complete patient anonymity

Following the baseline data collection practices will be matched in clusters by baseline cessation counseling rate and randomized within each cluster to intervention and control

In the intervention practices the research coordinator will work with the office manager to implement the most appropriate method of recording the vital sign for that practice To facilitate timely implementation the research coordinator will begin these discussions with all the practices early in the study so that it can be implemented smoothly once the randomization is determined Depending on how the practice currently records routine vital signs and documents visits in the chart smoking as vital sign could be implemented with a stamp on the visit note modification to forms andor progress note paper or modification to a vital sign flow sheet

Immediately prior to implementation of the smoking vital sign in the 9 intervention practices the research coordinator will conduct an in-service training session with the practices nursing staff For the six months intervention period in the intervention practices the nursing staff will record the patients response to a brief inquiry of their smoking status current former never with the other vital sign data This information is to be assessed routinely at each adult patient visit to the practice

With the exception of nursing staff assessing and recording the smoking vital sign all other work of data collection will be done by VCU research staff No intervention with providers will be done

During the six months intervention period and only in the intervention sites the office or nursing manager will be provided with periodic reports on how often patients report having been asked whether they smoke a measure of implementation of the intervention and asked to share this with the nursing staff through the practices usual QAQI mechanisms to reinforce continued performance of the intervention

Taking into account the clustered design statistical significance for the primary and secondary hypotheses will be tested by hierarchical logistic regression using the SAS and Sudaan statistical software The mean rates for intervention practices will be compared to the mean rates for control practices Temporal trends for patient report of intervention performance having been asked their smoking status and of the rates of cessation counseling for intervention and control practices will be portrayed in time-series graphs A repeated-measures design will be incorporated into the categorical models to test the statistical significance of temporal trends Secondary data analysis will examine possible influences of visit and smoking-related factors provider patient demographics and health status by adding these covariables to the categorical models

Resolving scientific uncertainty about the vital signs effectiveness is important Tobacco remains the leading cause of death and disability in this country Few practices have adopted the vital sign or any other type of tobacco tracking or reminder system Evidence that this intervention increases physician counseling with smokers would therefore argue for a change in current practice patterns If the vital sign intervention is not effective then expectations that practices adopt it as recommended in the CPG may be misguided Increasingly primary care physicians are being encouraged to modify their practices to incorporate quality-of-care interventions that lack scientific evidence of effectiveness Using randomized controlled trials to test the effectiveness of guidelines including those that are evidence-based is necessary to insure that they are relevant and useful when applied in typical primary care practices

Study Oversight

Has Oversight DMC: None
Is a FDA Regulated Drug?: None
Is a FDA Regulated Device?: None
Is an Unapproved Device?: None
Is a PPSD?: None
Is a US Export?: None
Is an FDA AA801 Violation?: None
Secondary IDs
Secondary ID Type Domain Link
RWJF 043145 OTHER_GRANT Robert Woods Johnson Foundation None
RWJF 036798 OTHER_GRANT None None