Abstract
Introduction: Female veterans smoke cigarettes at high rates compared with both male veterans and nonveteran women. Proactive outreach to smokers may reduce gender disparities in cessation care. The objectives of this study were to compare baseline experiences with VA smoking cessation care for men and women and to assess for gender differences in response to a proactive outreach intervention. Methods: We conducted a post hoc subgroup analysis of a pragmatic, multisite randomized, controlled trial comparing proactive outreach with usual care (UC). Baseline experiences included physician advice to quit, satisfaction with care, and past-year treatment use. At the 1-year follow-up, treatment use, quit attempts, and 6-month prolonged abstinence for women and men randomized to proactive outreach versus UC were compared using logistic regression. Results: Baseline and follow-up surveys were returned by 138 women and 2,516 men. At baseline, women were less likely than men to report being very or somewhat satisfied with the process of obtaining smoking cessation medications in the VA (47% of women vs. 62% of men), but no less likely to report having used cessation medications from the VA in the past year (39% of women vs. 34% of men). After the intervention, phone counseling and combined therapy increased among both women and men in proactive outreach as compared with UC. At the 1-year follow-up, men in proactive outreach were significantly more likely to report prolonged abstinence than those in UC (odds ratio, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.28–2.14); results for women were in the same direction but not statistically significant (odds ratio, 1.39; 95% CI, 0.48–3.99). Conclusions: Satisfaction with cessation care in VA remains low. Proactive outreach to smokers was associated with an increased use of cessation therapies, and increased odds of achieving prolonged abstinence. A subgroup analysis by gender did not reveal significant differences in the treatment effect.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | S15-S23 |
| Journal | Women's Health Issues |
| Volume | 29 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 25 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs , Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development , and Health Services Research and Development ( IAB-05-303 ). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the VA or the US Government. This trial is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00608426).
Funding Information:
Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development, and Health Services Research and Development (IAB-05-303). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the VA or the US Government. This trial is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00608426). Dr. Danan had full access to all the data in the study and takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
Funding Information:
Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development, and Health Services Research and Development (IAB-05-303). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the VA or the U.S. Government. This trial is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00608426). Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development, and Health Services Research and Development ( IAB-05-303). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the VA or the U.S. Government. This trial is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00608426). Dr. Danan had full access to all the data in the study and takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Office of Research and Development, and Health Services Research and Development ( IAB-05-303). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the VA or the U.S. Government. This trial is registered in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00608426).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
