Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the "Smoking Cessation Counseling" Scale

Purpose:

Nursing studies related to smoking show that the most frequent nursing interventions are those aimed at the smoking cessation¹¹. Randomized controlled trials studying the effects of nursing interventions in tobacco management are underway throughout worl¹ and many have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing smoking².

To emphasize the importance of the nurse’s role in smoking cessation, studies have identifie an increase of 47% on the success of smoking cessation counseling when it is initiated by nurses³.

Several instruments are available to measure the predisposition and to identify the barriers that slow the process of smoking cessation. Others evaluate satisfaction with counseling services. However, there are few instruments designed to evaluate smoking cessation practices and adherence to them by the health care providers^4-6.

In view of this deficit, Newhouse et al. created an instrument by means of psychometric testing, the Smoking Cessation Counseling Scale (SCC) designed to assess smoking cessation counseling practices applied in nurses’ clinical practice. The scale is reliable and valid in this practice, and its factor analysis can be used to investigate the impact of SCC on patients’ outcomes⁷.

The authors⁷ created the instrument based on the guideline "Helping Smokers Stop: A Guide for Nurses," published in 2005 by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, which has many similarities with the National Programme for Tobacco Control in Brazil.

For health care services and nurses to know the strengths and weaknesses of their interventions and to provide effective nursing care in order to reduce smoking rates, an instrument to assess the counseling practices for smoking cessation in the clinical practice is essential and possible.

Considering the impact of nursing counseling interventions for smoking cessation as measured by Smoking Cessation Counseling Scale, we believe that this instrument can be applied in the context of the clinical practice of Brazilian nurses, thereby enabling nurses to intervene and assess the smoking cessation process smoking more accurately.

However, because the Scales was developed to be used in a population with different characteristics, the cross-cultural adaptation and the evaluation of its psychometric properties for the Brazilian nursing is required.

So the aim of this study was to execute the cross-cultural adaptation and evaluation of the psychometric properties of the SCC scale for the Brazilian population.

 Methods:

The adaptation process followed the following phases: translation, synthesis of translations, back-translation, the experts committee, pretest and weighting of scores.The process of cultural adaptation consisted of two translations of SCC were carried out by two independent translators, a pure and literal translation, and a second version, adapted to the phenomenon under study. Then carried an overview of the translations, which were submitted to two version of the back-translation in Portuguese for the original scale language, English. After this process, a committee of experts investigated the relationship between translations, assessing the semantic equivalence, idiomatic, conceptual and cultural. At the end it conducted a pre-test for verified the psychometric properties of SCC. To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Smoking Cessation Counselin scale (SCC), it was decided to follow the methodological framework of the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient.

 Results:

Thus it was observed that the scale is reliable and valid in this practice, and the result of the factor analysis thereof can be used to investigate the impact of SCC on the outcome of patients.

 Conclusion:

The scale was considered reliable and valid for the Brazilian population. Thus allowing for future work, validate the instrument for the brazilian nursing practice, providing that nurses know the strengths and weaknesses of your intervention program, and provide effective nursing care in order to reduce smoking rates.