VALIDATION OF THE KAP SCALE

The Tobacco Control Unit, of the Institut Català d’Oncologia, is carrying out a validation study of a scale that measures the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) of professionals in the field of substance use in smoking cessation. This study is part of the ACT_ATAC project, funded by the FIS, and its main objective is to identify the predictors associated with smoking cessation in people undergoing treatment for alcohol and/or cannabis.

The KAP scale is an instrument designed to identify factors that facilitate or prevent professionals from offering help to quit smoking to patients undergoing treatment for substance abuse. The main objective of this study is to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the KAP scale. In order to carry it out, clinicians in the field of drug addiction will be asked to respond to the scale on two occasions, an initial one and another after a week. In this way, the consistency in the responses and stability of the results will be measured.

This study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (REF: PR042/23). The fieldwork will begin in September 2023. It is expected that 225 clinical professionals working in the field of drug addiction will participate.

Completion of this study will provide a validated tool for evaluating interventions aimed at smoking cessation in people with substance use disorder. Since tobacco use is one of the leading causes of premature illness and death, especially in people with substance use disorder, having a validated tool to assess this benefit is of great importance. In addition, the analysis of the psychometric properties of the scale will allow Mr. Pablo Bautista (predoctoral researcher at the UCT and the UB) to finish Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Dr. Cristina Martínez and Dr. Montse Puig.