title: Adoption, reach and effectiveness of computer-based, practitioner delivered and combined smoking interventions in general medical practices: a three-arm cluster randomized trial.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Brief advice for smoking patients has not been sufficiently integrated in routine care. Computer-based interventions emerged as a time saving option that might help to exhaust the potential population impact of the general practice setting.
  
  
  METHODS
  151 practices were randomly assigned to one of three intervention programs consisting in the delivery of: (1) brief advice by the practitioner; (2) individually tailored computer-generated letters; or (3) a combination of both interventions. We assessed three dimensions of population impact: (1) adoption, i.e., the rate of practices participating in the program; (2) reach, measured as the number of interventions provided within 7 months; (3) effectiveness, measured as smoking abstinence at 12-months follow-up.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Among the practices, 70% adopted the program with no significant differences across study groups. Treatment was provided to 3086 adult smokers. Negative binomial regression analysis revealed that the number of interventions provided was higher in practices allocated to the tailored letter and combination intervention groups by 215% (p<.01) and 127% (p=.02), respectively, compared to the brief advice intervention group. Among the patients who received the combination of both intervention, the odds of point abstinence from smoking was increased by 65% (p=.02) and 32% (p=.01) compared to the brief advice and tailored letters intervention respectively. Comparing the number of abstinent patients at follow-up revealed that the tailored letter and combination interventions were superior to the brief advice intervention.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Computer-based interventions alone or in addition to conventional practitioner-delivered advice can foster the participation of general medical practices in tobacco control.
authors.affiliation: University of Greifswald, Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Germany. chmeyer@uni-greifswald.de
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ulbricht
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: Lissy
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kästel
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wittrien
authors.forename: Gudrun
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.forename: Britta A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Skoeries
authors.forename: Hans-Jürgen
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Rumpf
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: John
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001521:Behavior Therapy; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted; D016896:Treatment Outcome