Table 4.

Inpatient Nurses’ Attitudes Toward Smoking Cessation Counseling Before and After Guideline Implementation^*

Clinician variable	Pre-implementation	Post-implementation	p value (N)†
Decisional balance – “pros” subscale, mean (sd)	32.7 (7.2)	35.3 (7.7)	0.008 (26)
Decisional balance – “cons” subscale, mean (sd)	28.0 (7.5)	26.5 (8.3)	0.24 (29)
Self-efficacy in counseling, % moderately-very effective§	21	38	0.23 (29)
Satisfaction with counseling role, % satisfied**	34	52	0.39 (29)

^*The Pros and Cons scales have high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83, 0.86, respectively); validity was supported by finding significantly higher Pros scores and lower Cons scores for those clinicians who offered assistance to all patients who smoked [Park, 2001]. Analyses were based on those nurses who completed both pre-implementation and post-implementation surveys. Data were missing for those clinicians who were no longer employed at the study sites at the time of the pre-intervention and post-intervention surveys, who were employed as “floating” (or locum tenens) staff and did not attend project meetings, or who refused to complete either survey

^†Comparisons are based on the signed rank test for ordinal variables (self-efficacy in counseling, satisfaction with counseling role) and the paired t-test for continuous variables (decisional balance subscales)

^§4-point scale: Very effective = 3, Moderately effectively = 2, Slightly effective = 1, Ineffective = 0

^**5-point scale: Very satisfied = 2, Satisfied = 1, Neutral = 0, Somewhat dissatisfied = −1, Very dissatisfied = −2