Hospital-based Patient Navigation to Promote Smoking Cessation: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

An Electronic Privacy Information Center(EPIC programmer who works with the Inpatient Tobacco Treatment Program will identify potential participants using electronic health record (EHR) data each week.

Eligible patients who are interested in the study and provide informed consent will be randomized and informed of the randomization assignment by the research assistant. We will stratify randomization by participants' response regarding their plan to quit smoking ("in the next month" or "more than a month from now"). A computer-generated sequence of random numbers will assign treatment groups. Participants will be randomized to one of two treatment arms: (1) standard of care, or (2) PN: a patient navigator to coordinate tobacco treatment with the smoker's outpatient healthcare team and address any underlying social determinants of health that are barriers to cessation (identified using a validated social determinants of health screening tool).

Assessments. A trained research assistant will administer these assessments either in-person or over the phone. The assessments require under 30 minutes to complete. The PI will also conduct an in-depth interview with the patient navigator to explore barriers to successful navigation. Outcome assessments will be conducted at baseline (prior to randomization) and at 3-months after randomization. Participants will be assessed at 3-months, for self-report of quitting, use of smoking cessation medications, and use of counseling in the outpatient setting.

Enhanced Traditional Care: Participants randomized to this group will receive a resource card that has information on quitlines, Boston Medical Center (BMC) outpatient program number, and websites for smoking cessation.

Patient Navigation Intervention: This intervention is based on the Social Contextual Model, a multi-level approach to health education which stresses the influence of life experiences (e.g. stress and financial problems) and social relationships (e.g. social networks and family roles) on the practice of health behaviors. Participants randomized into this group will meet the trained navigator in person if she is available, or will be introduced by telephone. Participants will receive up to ten hours of patient navigation, in person or over the phone, over a three-month period. Patient navigation contacts will involve individual counseling to help the patient achieve abstinence from smoking. Navigators will also screen participants for social determinants of health which may be preventing them from quitting smoking, using an adapted version of a validated social determinants of health screening tool. Patient navigation intervention calls will use motivational interviewing (MI) strategies to do the following: (1) Assess stage of change for smoking cessation; (2) Assess and reinforce any prior abstinence from smoking and/or any efforts made to reduce or quit smoking; (3) Explore the patient's motivation to quit smoking, drawing on recent illness, financial situation, and family situation as appropriate; advise about the risks of smoking and benefits of quitting (4) Discuss past experience with utilizing cessation support; (5) Explore potential barriers to using smoking cessation medications (e.g. lack of trust, cost, misconceptions about treatment (e.g. that nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is more harmful than cigarettes); (6) Brainstorm strategies to address identified barriers; (7) Elicit commitment to accept another patient navigation counseling call, discuss timing.