Caught in the middle: experiences of tobacco-dependent nurse practitioners.

PURPOSE: To explore how tobacco-dependent nurse practitioners (NPs) describe their experiences with health promotion and disease prevention practices with patients who smoke. DATA SOURCES: Twelve NPs who completed a graduate level NP program of study participated in face-to-face interviews and/or online chat room interviews. CONCLUSIONS: Participants' responses revealed three themes relevant to their experience as tobacco-dependent clinicians with health promotion responsibilities. These themes centered around (a) living as an insider in the world of tobacco addiction, (b) having the outside-in view of living with a tobacco addiction, and (c) being caught in the middle of a tobacco addiction. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: All of the tobacco-dependent participants described limited smoking-cessation interventions with their patients. A barrier to implementation of more aggressive interventions, perhaps, is the provider's own tobacco addiction. With increasing evidence that tobacco-dependent health care professionals are not adequately intervening with tobacco-dependent patients, effective strategies are needed to assist and/or support not only tobacco-dependent patients but providers as well.