An Education Program for Perinatal Nurses on Smoking Relapse Prevention in the Postpartum Period

There have been significant gains in smoking cessation among pregnant women, but the rate of postpartum relapse remains high. Smoking is harmful to both the mother and child’s health and women need to be educated about the... [ view full abstract ]

There have been significant gains in smoking cessation among pregnant women, but the rate of postpartum relapse remains high. Smoking is harmful to both the mother and child’s health and women need to be educated about the risk of relapse and effective strategies to remain smoke free. The high rate of early postpartum relapse suggests that interventions must take place soon after delivery and perinatal nurses are in the ideal position to provide these strategies. Despite evidence that nurses can be effective in providing tobacco counseling, few feel confident to actually follow through with recommended guidelines.
The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a relapse prevention education program on perinatal nurse’s attitude, self-efficacy, knowledge and behavior toward counseling in the postpartum period.
A multi-site, interventional study was conducted using a pre-test/post-test design. A total of 162 perinatal nurses from four hospitals participated in the counseling education program. Participants completed pre, post and one month follow up tests assessing knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and behavior toward relapse prevention counseling in the postpartum period. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize respondents; one way repeated ANOVAs were used to evaluate differences in scores on attitude, self-efficacy, knowledge and behavior.
There was a significant increase in scores on knowledge, self-efficacy and behavior from pretest to follow up test. Although quitline referral scores increased from pre to follow-up test, the scores were very low. There were no significant differences in scores related to participant age, years of experience or level of education
Results indicate that the education program is effective in increasing nurses’ tobacco counseling knowledge, self-efficacy and behavior. Interventions are needed to increase quitline referrals for postpartum women at risk of smoking relapse. Providing this education has the potential to decrease the rate of postpartum smoking relapse.