Beatriz H. Carlini

Reaching out, inviting back: using Interactive voice response (IVR) technology to recycle relapsed smokers back to Quitline treatment – a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundTobacco dependence is a chronic, relapsing condition that typically requires multiple quit attempts and extended treatment. When offered the opportunity, relapsed smokers are interested in recycling back into treatment for a new, assisted quit attempt. This manuscript presents the results of a randomized controlled trial testing the efficacy of interactive voice response (IVR) in recycling low income smokers who had previously used quitline (QL) support back to QL support for a new quit attempt.MethodsA sample of 2985 previous QL callers were randomized to either receive IVR screening for current smoking (control group) or IVR screening plus an IVR intervention. The IVR intervention consists of automated questions to identify and address barriers to re-cycling in QL support, followed by an offer to be transferred to the QL and reinitiate treatment. Re-enrollment in QL services for both groups was documented.ResultsThe IVR system successfully reached 715 (23.9%) former QL participants. Of those, 27% (194/715) reported to the IVR system that they had quit smoking and were therefore excluded from the study and analysis. The trial’s final sample was composed of 521 current smokers. The re-enrollment rate was 3.3% for the control group and 28.2% for the intervention group (p < .001). Logistic regression results indicated an 11.2 times higher odds for re-enrollment of the intervention group than the control group (p < .001). Results did not vary by gender, race, ethnicity, or level of education, however recycled smokers were older (Mean =45.2; SD = 11.7) than smokers who declined a new treatment cycle (Mean = 41.8; SD = 13.2); (p = 0.013). The main barriers reported for not engaging in a new treatment cycle were low self-efficacy and lack of interest in quitting. After delivering IVR messages targeting these reported barriers, 32% of the smokers reporting low self-efficacy and 4.8% of those reporting lack of interest in quitting re-engaged in a new QL treatment cycle.ConclusionProactive IVR outreach is a promising tool to engage low income, relapsed smokers back into a new cycle of treatment. Integration of IVR intervention for recycling smokers with previous QL treatment has the potential to decrease tobacco-related disparities.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01260597

Using “warm handoffs” to link hospitalized smokers with tobacco treatment after discharge: study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundPost-discharge support is a key component of effective treatment for hospitalized smokers, but few hospitals provide it. Many hospitals and care settings fax-refer smokers to quitlines for follow-up; however, less than half of fax-referred smokers are successfully contacted and enrolled in quitline services. “Warm handoff” is a novel approach to care transitions in which health care providers directly link patients with substance abuse problems with specialists, using face-to-face or phone transfer. Warm handoff achieves very high rates of treatment enrollment for these vulnerable groups.MethodsThe aim of this study—“EQUIP” (Enhancing Quitline Utilization among In-Patients)—is to determine the effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness, of warm handoff versus fax referral for linking hospitalized smokers with tobacco quitlines. This study employs a two-arm, individually randomized design. It is set in two large Kansas hospitals that have dedicated tobacco treatment interventionists on staff. At each site, smokers who wish to remain abstinent after discharge will be randomly assigned to groups. For patients in the fax group, staff will provide standard in-hospital intervention and will fax-refer patients to the state tobacco quitline for counseling post-discharge. For patients in the warm handoff group, staff will provide brief in-hospital intervention and immediate warm handoff: staff will call the state quitline, notify them that a warm handoff inpatient from Kansas is on the line, then transfer the call to the patients’ mobile or bedside hospital phone for quitline enrollment and an initial counseling session. Following the quitline session, hospital staff provides a brief check-back visit. Outcome measures will be assessed at 1, 6, and 12 months post enrollment. Costs are measured to support cost-effectiveness analyses. We hypothesize that warm handoff, compared to fax referral, will improve care transitions for tobacco treatment, enroll more participants in quitline services, and lead to higher quit rates. We also hypothesize that warm handoff will be more cost-effective from a societal perspective.DiscussionIf successful, this project offers a low-cost solution for more efficiently linking millions of hospitalized smokers with effective outpatient treatment—smokers that might otherwise be lost in the transition to outpatient care.Trial registrationClinical Trials Registration NCT01305928

Re-branding cannabis: the next generation of chronic pain medicine?

The field of pain medicine is at a crossroads given the epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths from prescription opioids. Cannabis and its active ingredients, cannabinoids, are a much safer therapeutic option. Despite being slowed by legal restrictions and stigma, research continues to show that when used appropriately, cannabis is safe and effective for many forms of chronic pain and other conditions, and has no overdose levels. Current literature indicates many chronic pain patients could be treated with cannabis alone or with lower doses of opioids. To make progress, cannabis needs to be re-branded as a legitimate medicine and rescheduled to a more pharmacologically justifiable class of compounds. This paper discusses the data supporting re-branding and rescheduling of cannabis.

Telephone-based tobacco-cessation treatment: re-enrollment among diverse groups.

BACKGROUND Telephone quitlines are utilized by diverse individuals and represent an effective tobacco-cessation modality. Quitlines allow tobacco users to seek support for multiple quit attempts. Little is known about how frequently tobacco users take advantage of this opportunity. No studies have been conducted to determine how communication strategies affect quitline re-enrollments. This study aimed to determine the rates of quitline re-enrollment and to compare the responses of people of varying racial/ethnic identities to invitations utilizing different communication strategies. DESIGN Four-cell RCT. SETTING/ PARTICIPANTS Random sample of 2400 tobacco users who enrolled into services during 2006, with oversampling of ethnic populations. INTERVENTION Between November 2006 and January 2007, participants received either no invitation to re-enroll or were invited to re-enroll into services via a letter, a letter with ethnic-specific content, or a letter and a telephone call. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Re-enrollment into quitline services. RESULTS Analysis of the 252 days prior to the intervention resulted in a spontaneous re-enrollment rate of 0.54% per 30 days. Recruitment using mailers did not significantly change this rate; the addition of telephone calls increased re-enrollment to 6.93% per 30 days. No significant differences were found among the subpopulations studied. Invalid addresses (16%); invalid telephone numbers (29.1%); and the inability to reach subjects after five call attempts (37.9%) were barriers to recruitment. CONCLUSIONS For those who have previously called quitlines for help, proactive re-enrollment can be one way to initiate a new quit attempt after relapse. This study has shown that it is feasible to re-enroll former quitline participants, making the test of effectiveness the next logical step.

Medicinal Cannabis: A Survey Among Health Care Providers in Washington State.

Introduction: Washington State allows marijuana use for medical (since 1998) and recreational (since 2012) purposes. The benefits of medicinal cannabis (MC) can be maximized if clinicians educate patients about dosing, routes of administration, side effects, and plant composition. However, little is known about clinicians’ knowledge and practices in Washington State. Methods: An anonymous online survey assessed providers’ MC knowledge, beliefs, clinical practices, and training needs. The survey was disseminated through health care providers’ professional organizations in Washington State. Descriptive analysis compared providers who had and had not authorized MC for patients. Survey results informed the approach and content of an online training on best clinical practices of MC. Results: Four hundred ninety-four health care providers responded to the survey. Approximately two-third were women, aged 30 to 60 years, and working in family or internal medicine. More than half of the respondents were legally allowed to write MC authorizations per Washington State law, and 27% of those had issued written MC authorizations. Overall, respondents reported low knowledge and comfort level related to recommending MC. Respondents rated MC knowledge as important and supported inclusion of MC training in medical/health provider curriculum. Most Washington State providers have not received education on scientific basis of MC or training on best clinical practices of MC. Clinicians who had issued MC authorizations were more likely to have received MC training than those who had not issued MC authorization. Discussion: The potential of MCs to benefit some patients is hindered by the lack of comfort of clinicians to recommend it. Training opportunities are badly needed to address these issues.

Refer2Quit: Impact of Web-Based Skills Training on Tobacco Interventions and Quitline Referrals.

Introduction: Tobacco quitlines (QLs) provide effective evidence‐based tobacco cessation counseling, yet they remain underutilized. Barriers to utilization include the lack of referrals by health care providers who typically have little knowledge about QLs and low self‐efficacy for providing tobacco interventions. In order to educate providers about QLs, referral methods and tobacco interventions, a case‐based online CME/CE program, Refer2Quit (R2Q), was developed. R2Q includes QL education and intervention and referral skills training tailored to provider type (eg, physician, nurse, dental provider, pharmacist) and work setting (eg, emergency, outpatient, inpatient). A module teaching motivational enhancement strategies was also included. Methods: Four health care organizations in Washington State participated in a study examining the effects of R2Q training on fax referral rates in an interrupted times series. Attitudes and self‐efficacy toward delivering tobacco interventions was also assessed. Participants were a mix of provider types, including prescribers (20.1%), RNs (46.7%), and others (33.2%). Results: Health care sites that participated in the study increased the fax referral rates (odds ratio [OR] 2.86, confidence interval [CI] 1.52‐6.00) as well as rates of referrals that converted to actual quitline registrations (OR 2.73, CI 1.0‐7.4). Providers who completed the training expressed significantly more positive attitudes and improved self‐efficacy for delivering tobacco services. At follow‐up most providers reported increased delivery of tobacco interventions and QL referrals, although only 17% reported increased rates of fax referral. Discussion: Our study suggests that online education builds skills, improves knowledge, and thus increases the number and quality of fax referrals made to QLs by health care providers. Providers nonetheless reported ongoing barriers to providing tobacco services and referral, including lack of reimbursement and patient unwillingness to accept a referral.

Using the Chronic Care Model to Address Tobacco in Health Care Delivery Organizations: A Pilot Experience in Washington State

This article describes a Washington State—based Systems Change Pilot Project in which the chronic care model and the model for improvement were used as tools to promote tobacco cessation—related changes within a health care system. Three diverse sites participated in the pilot. Site teams tailored plan-do-study-act tests to site circumstances, addressing current resources and barriers to implementing change. Teams tested system changes that incorporated tobacco use documentation into the routine health services provided. Findings from this pilot suggest that (a) even simple changes with minimal disruption of services can make a difference in improving documentation of tobacco use status; (b) changes to routine practices of health organizations may not be sustainable if ongoing quality assurance mechanisms are not developed; and (c) systems implemented for other disease states within the same organization or patient population are not instinctively applied to tobacco, because of a multitude of factors.

Using Diverse Communication Strategies to Re-Engage Relapsed Tobacco Quitline Users in Treatment, New York State, 2014

Introduction Most smoking cessation programs lack strategies to reach relapsed participants and encourage a new quit attempt. We used a multimodal intervention to encourage past quitline registry participants to recycle into services. Methods We invited 3,510 past quitline participants back to quitline services, using messages consecutively delivered through Interactive Voice Response (IVR), followed by postcard and email reminders, 2 Short Messaging Services (SMS) texts, and a final cycle of IVR. The primary study outcome was recycling into a new quitline-assisted quit attempt. We used statistical analyses to assess rates and predictors of recycling (socioeconomic, health- and tobacco-related variables) with study participants and compared the study sample with registry participants not selected for the study (comparison group). Results Quitline services were re-initiated by 12.2% of the intervention sample and 1.9% of the comparison group (z = 6.03, P < .001, effect size of 0.44). Most re-enrollments were done via direct IVR-transfer to the quitline. Predictors of re-enrollment were age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.45 for every 10 years of age; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.34–1.57), number of years smoking (OR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.18–1.36), and reporting cancer (OR = 2.32; 95% CI, 1.47–3.68) or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (OR = 1.55; 95% CI, 1.16–2.10). Living with other smokers was correlated with a lower chance of recycling into treatment (OR = 0.72; 95% CI, 0.57–0.91). Conclusion Recycling previous quitline participants using a proactive, IVR-based intervention is effective in reinitiating quitline-assisted quit attempts. Older, long-term smokers reporting chronic conditions are more likely than younger smokers to re-engage in quitline support when these methods are used.

Identifying HIV care enrollees at-risk for cannabis use disorder

ABSTRACT Increased scientific attention given to cannabis in the United States has particular relevance for its domestic HIV care population, given that evidence exists for both cannabis as a therapeutic agent and cannabis use disorder (CUD) as a barrier to antiretroviral medication adherence. It is critical to identify relative risk for CUD among demographic subgroups of HIV patients, as this will inform detection and intervention efforts. A Center For AIDS Research Network of Integrated Clinical Systems cohort (N = 10,652) of HIV-positive adults linked to care at seven United State sites was examined for this purpose. Based on a patient-report instrument with validated diagnostic threshold for CUD, the prevalence of recent cannabis use and corresponding conditional probabilities for CUD were calculated for the aggregate sample and demographic subgroups. Generalized estimating equations then tested models directly examining patient demographic indices as predictors of CUD, while controlling for history and geography. Conditional probability of CUD among cannabis-using patients was 49%, with the highest conditional probabilities among demographic subgroups of young adults and those with non-specified sexual orientation (67–69%) and the lowest conditional probability among females and those 50+ years of age (42% apiece). Similarly, youthful age and male gender emerged as robust multivariate model predictors of CUD. In the context of increasingly lenient policies for use of cannabis as a therapeutic agent for chronic conditions like HIV/AIDS, current study findings offer needed direction in terms of specifying targeted patient groups in HIV care on whom resources for enhanced surveillance and intervention efforts will be most impactful.

Potencialidades da técnica qualitativa grupo focal em investigações sobre abuso de substâncias

The focus group, a qualitative research method useful for Public Health investigation, is described and discussed. The potential application of the focus group method in drug abuse research in Brazil is emphasized.Descreve-se e discute-se o grupo focal, metodo qualitativo de coleta de dados de ampla aplicacao na Saude Publica. Especial enfase e conferida as potencialidades do uso do grupo focal em investigacoes, na area de abuso de drogas.etiologia da doenca alcoolismo e seu possivel trata-mento. Nao ofereciam, nessa medida, informacoessobre o padrao de uso de alcool e outras substânciasem populacoes nao-clinicas.Nas ultimas decadas, vem se observando na Ame-rica do Sul uma maior sofisticacao metodologica e aampliacao do foco das pesquisas nessa area