Tackling Tobacco Mental Health Project

Neami National, Cancer Council NSW and NSW Government Health

Completed

Existing data suggests that smoking rates amongst people with psychosis in Australia has not changed in over 20 years. Community managed organisations (CMO’s) represent potential settings where smoking cessation care delivery could be enhanced as they are trusted sources of support; provide health and wellbeing related information and care, and have a consumer base with high smoking rates.

However there is a lack of research demonstrating the best ways to go about helping CMOs to support consumers to quit. There is a critical need to explore strategies for increasing the provision of smoking cessation support in mental health services through organisational change and capacity building exercises.

The Tackling Tobacco Mental Health (TTMH) project aims to explore how Community Managed Organisations (CMO’s) can be supported to help consumers who access support through the HASI funding model can be assisted to quit smoking. The project aims to develop guidelines for CMO’s to implement organisational changes to enhance the way smoking cessation support is delivered by community mental health service staff. The project also aims to examine how these organisational changes impact on consumers’ smoking behaviours.

The evaluation comprises a cluster randomised controlled trial to assess the difference between a high versus low intensity Tackling tobacco program intervention. Outcome measures will be gathered at an organisational level (i.e. policies, procedures and strategies); staff level (i.e. smoking cessation support integrated into routine care by CMO staff) and consumer level (i.e. quit attempts and no. of cigarettes smoked).