Clinicians’ perceptions of implementation extensiveness of 100% tobacco free practices.

In 2008, the state of New York required substance use disorder treatment organizations to be 100% tobacco-free. This study analyzed data from NIDA’s National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) platform study, Managing Effective Relationships in Treatment Services (MERITS II), to examine clinicians’ perceptions of the implementation extensiveness of the tobacco-free practices approximately 10–12 months (Time 1) and 20–24 months (Time 2) post regulation and investigated whether clinicians’ commitment to change and use of provided resources at Time 1 predicts perceptions of implementation extensiveness at Time 2. Clinicians (N=287) noted a mean implementation of 5.60 patient practices (0–10 scale), 2.33 visitor practices (0–8 scale), and 6.66 employee practices (0–12 scale) at Time 1. At Time 2, clinicians perceived a mean implementation of 5.95 patient practices (no increase from Time 1), 2.89 visitor practices (increase from Time 1), and 7.12 employee practices (no increase from Time 1).

Conclusions: Two main conclusions can be reached from the findings. First, perceived implementation extensiveness of the tobacco-free practices for patients, visitors, and employees at Time 1 is limited and only perceptions of visitor practices increase significantly at Time 2. Additionally, clinicians’ commitment to change predicts unique variance in perceptions of implementation extensiveness over time for visitor and employee practices but not patient practices. By contrast, clinicians’ use of OASAS-provided resources is a unique predictor of perceived implementation extensiveness of patient, visitor, and employee practices over time. The NYS OASAS 100% tobacco-free regulations in SUD treatment programs provides a unique opportunity to study clinicians’ perceptions of the implementation extensiveness of various practices of the regulations over time.