Changes in success rates of smoking cessation treatment associated with take up of a national evidencebased training programme

- Stop smoking services increase success of quit attempts, but performance varies.
- New practitioner training was based on competences needed for effective support.
- Service performance improved from before to after national roll-out of training.
- Services with greater uptake of training show greater improvements.

ObjectiveThe English 'stop smoking services' provide behavioural support to some 700,000 smokers annually. Success rates of the services varied considerably before 2010 and had been in slight decline so, to improve performance, a national programme of evidence-based practitioner training was developed to improve knowledge and skills-based competences. This study evaluated whether uptake of the training was associated with improvements in success rates of services.MethodsMean 4-week biochemically verified abstinence rates were compared for 146 (of 151) stop smoking services between 2008-10 (before roll-out of training) and 2011-13 (after roll-out), and the change in success rates for each service was regressed on to the number of practitioners per service trained in a) knowledge (online) and b) skills (face-to-face).ResultsSuccess rate across all services improved between the two periods (34.1% to 36.5%, p = 0.01 1-tailed; 95% CI for difference 0.44-4.48). The magnitude of improvement for each service was associated with the number of practitioners who completed the knowledge and skills training (beta = 0.22, p = 0.005 1-tailed), and marginally with the number who completed the knowledge training (beta = 0.14, p = 0.047 1-tailed).ConclusionEnglish stop smoking services that have greater uptake of a national evidence-based training programme showed greater improvements in success rates.