Health Workers’ Practice Towards Smoking Cessation Intervention Based on 5A’s Model and Associated Factors in Public Hospitals, Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: The tobacco pandemic is one of the world’s most serious public health concerns, killing more than 8 million lives per year. The worst burden is in low- and middle-income countries. Unless appropriate action is taken, the burden may worsen. Health workers are among the actors to implement smoke cessation interventions. However, the level of intervention practices towards smoke cessation was not defined. OBJECTIVE: To determine health workers’ practice towards smoke cessation interventions based on 5A’s model and associated factors in public hospitals. METHODS: Facility-based cross-sectional design was used. All public hospitals found in the Hadiya zone were included in the study. From each public hospital, representative number of health workers, who fulfil inclusion criteria, were included in the study. A total of 323 sample size of health workers were used. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect data. Both descriptive and advanced analyses were performed using SPSS software version 20.0. In bivariable analysis, variables with p-value < 0.25 were considered for multivariable analysis. Finally, odds ratio with 95% CI and p-value < 0.05 were used to declare factors as significantly associated with the outcome variable. RESULTS: About 97% of health care workers had poor practice on smoking cessation interventions. About 7.4% (23) health workers reported as they were current smokers. Moreover, only 28% of health workers asked their patients about smoking status. Being females, having <10 years of service, training and having good knowledge was significantly associated with the outcome variable. CONCLUSION: Majority of the healthcare workers surveyed did not provide smoking cessation interventions. Identified statistically significant factors with the practice of smoke cessation interventions in this study were sex, knowledge, training and service years. Therefore, strategies should be designed and implemented to improve and equip the health workers towards practising of smoke cessation interventions by instituting smoke cessation programs.