Aims: Despite improvements in global smoking rates1, patients who continue to smoke after a cancer diagnosis experience high mortality and morbidity2. This study aimed to understand nurses’ current knowledge and practices in providing smoking cessation care in general practice settings.
Methods: Participants were registered nurses currently working in a general practice setting in Australia. Interviews were conducted over Zoom and focused on current practice and opportunities to improve delivery of smoking cessation care. Interviews were recorded and a thematic analysis was conducted.
Results: Fourteen general practice nurses participated of which 13 (93%) were female. Nurses varied in age and experience and were recruited across most states and territories, with representation from metropolitan, regional and rural Australia.
Three themes were evident in the data. The first theme: Nurses’ current practices in supporting people to quit smoking focuses on the strategies currently employed by nurses to deliver cessation care. The second theme: The influence of the general practice setting on smoking cessation discussions explores the impact of diversity in the systems, processes, and structures across Australian general practice settings on the support offered by nurses. The third theme: The challenges experienced by nurses in providing optimal smoking cessation care focuses on ambiguity in nurses’ roles within the practice setting, the potential for engaging quitlines and vaping as an emerging issue.
Conclusions: Nurses believe that general practice settings are ideally positioned for delivery of smoking cessation care and felt it to be an important part of their role. In practice, the delivery of smoking cessation care varies with different clinics and practitioners. There is a need to understand how to best optimise nurse, and GP roles to deliver best practice smoking cessation care to people affected by cancer.