Clinician’s perceptions and experiences with tobacco treatment in people who use cannabis: a qualitative study
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Introduction
Global demand for the treatment of cannabis use disorder has increased significantly, prompting a need to understand effective strategies for addressing concurrent cannabis and tobacco use. This study focuses on clinicians' experiences and perceptions in delivering tobacco cessation services to people who use cannabis.
Methods
Fifteen participants (12 females, 3 males) participated in three homogenous focus groups, including two groups with extensive experience in providing tobacco cessation among the substance use population in Catalonia, Spain, and one group of clinicians without such experience. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify key patterns and insights in their discourse, focusing on shared themes and divergences across groups.
Results
Five main themes and 17 subthemes emerged: Individual characteristics, Clinician characteristics, Models of intervention, Organizational healthcare models, and Health policies. Clinicians stressed the importance of intervention models and the active role of professionals in addressing tobacco use within routine care, as tobacco cessation could mitigate social and chronic stigma among people who use cannabis, especially those engaged in polydrug use.
Discussion and conclusions
Recommendations included integrating tobacco cessation into all services, reducing healthcare service fragmentation, improving resource accessibility, enhancing clinical documentation, and advocating for stronger population-level tobacco control policies.
Trial registration
The ACT-ATAC project has been successfully registered at Clinicaltrials.gov [NCT04841655].
Highlights
• Concurrent cannabis and tobacco use is widespread, making it crucial to gain insights from front-line clinicians to promote the cessation of both substances.
• Clinicians emphasize systemic fragmentation in tobacco interventions and the lack of coordination among several healthcare services.
• Clinical professionals recommend addressing tobacco cessation as a crucial element for reducing chronicity among people who use several drugs, including cannabis.
• Discussions about tobacco use should be incorporated into group activities and treatments tailored based on individual characteristics.
• Collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and public health authorities is essential in developing tobacco cessation policy and treatment models based on personalized interventions.
Global demand for the treatment of cannabis use disorder has increased significantly, prompting a need to understand effective strategies for addressing concurrent cannabis and tobacco use. This study focuses on clinicians' experiences and perceptions in delivering tobacco cessation services to people who use cannabis.
Methods
Fifteen participants (12 females, 3 males) participated in three homogenous focus groups, including two groups with extensive experience in providing tobacco cessation among the substance use population in Catalonia, Spain, and one group of clinicians without such experience. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify key patterns and insights in their discourse, focusing on shared themes and divergences across groups.
Results
Five main themes and 17 subthemes emerged: Individual characteristics, Clinician characteristics, Models of intervention, Organizational healthcare models, and Health policies. Clinicians stressed the importance of intervention models and the active role of professionals in addressing tobacco use within routine care, as tobacco cessation could mitigate social and chronic stigma among people who use cannabis, especially those engaged in polydrug use.
Discussion and conclusions
Recommendations included integrating tobacco cessation into all services, reducing healthcare service fragmentation, improving resource accessibility, enhancing clinical documentation, and advocating for stronger population-level tobacco control policies.
Trial registration
The ACT-ATAC project has been successfully registered at Clinicaltrials.gov [NCT04841655].
Highlights
• Concurrent cannabis and tobacco use is widespread, making it crucial to gain insights from front-line clinicians to promote the cessation of both substances.
• Clinicians emphasize systemic fragmentation in tobacco interventions and the lack of coordination among several healthcare services.
• Clinical professionals recommend addressing tobacco cessation as a crucial element for reducing chronicity among people who use several drugs, including cannabis.
• Discussions about tobacco use should be incorporated into group activities and treatments tailored based on individual characteristics.
• Collaboration among researchers, clinicians, and public health authorities is essential in developing tobacco cessation policy and treatment models based on personalized interventions.
Date Issued
2025-01-21
Date Acceptance
2024-12-19
Citation
Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 2025, 20
ISSN
1747-597X
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Journal / Book Title
Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
Volume
20
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/39838401
PII: 10.1186/s13011-024-00632-8
Subjects
Cannabis
Health policy
Healthcare services
Substance use
Tobacco
Humans
Male
Female
Qualitative Research
Focus Groups
Attitude of Health Personnel
Spain
Adult
Tobacco Use Cessation
Middle Aged
Marijuana Abuse
Health Personnel
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
3
Date Publish Online
2025-01-21