Cox, Sharon;
Murray, Jaimi;
Ford, Allison;
Holmes, Lucy;
Robson, Deborah;
Dawkins, Lynne;
(2022)
A cross-sectional survey of smoking and cessation support policies in a sample of homeless services in the United Kingdom.
BMC Health Services Research
, 22
(1)
, Article 635. 10.1186/s12913-022-08038-7.
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Abstract
Background: Smoking is extremely common amongst adults experiencing homelessness. To date, there is no nationally representative data on how tobacco dependence is treated and if and how smoking cessation is supported across the homeless sector. The aim of this study was to document smoking and e-cigarette policies of UK homeless services and identify areas of good practice and where improvements could be made. Methods: A cross-sectional survey with homeless centre staff was conducted between June 2020-December 2020 totalling 99 homeless centres. Quotas were stratified based on population and service type across Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England. Interviews were conducted over the phone or online in a minority of cases. Survey questions were themed to assess, i) onsite smoking and e-cigarette (vaping) policies ii) screening and recording of smoking status, iii) cessation training and resources available to staff, iv) cessation support for service users. Results: 92% accounted for smoking within their policies in some form (stand-alone policy (56%) or embedded within another health and safety policy (36%)). 84% allowed smoking in at least some (indoor and outdoor) areas. In areas where smoking was not allowed, vaping was also disallowed in 96% of cases. Staff smoking rates were 23% and 62% of centres reported staff smoked with service users. Just over half (52%) reported screening and recording smoking status and 58% made referrals to Stop Smoking Services (SSS), although established links with SSS were low (12%) and most centres did not provide staff training on supporting smoking cessation. Areas of good practice included regular offers of smoking cessation support embedded in routine health reviews or visits from SSS and offering tangible harm reduction support. Areas for improvement include staff training, staff smoking with service users and skipping routine screening questions around smoking. Conclusions: Smoking is accounted for across different policy types and restricted in some areas within most settings. Smoking cessation support is not routinely offered across the sector and there is little involvement with the SSS.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A cross-sectional survey of smoking and cessation support policies in a sample of homeless services in the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12913-022-08038-7 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08038-7 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
| Keywords: | Tobacco, Homelessness, Smoking cessation, Harm reduction, Smoking, Vaping, E-cigarette, Policies, Survey |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Behavioural Science and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10148492 |
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