INTERVIEWS WITH HEALTH AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS

The interviews with health and other professionals produced more detailed
information.

Several of the people interviewed had not used the resource directly with young
people,as they were resources officers in large health organisations. They tended
to assess the usefulness of a resource by the demand for it, and from the comments
people made when they made repeat orders. Most said that neither they nor their
colleagues were able to carry out more structured and scientific evaluations of
resources because of lack of time and money.

Some of the health promotion advisers interviewed also had not used the booklet
directly, as their role was to disseminate and organise programmes for teachers,
youth workers, community nurses and others, across an area or region.

However, the feedback to them confirmed the findings from the questionnaires
that the booklet was popular among professionals and liked by young people.

Comments included:

I've not used it myself as I'm the resources person. School nurses, health
visitors, practice nurses have all liked it when they've seen it. They think
it's good and they come back for more. Again, I've got no direct feedback
on its impact, but people's reaction is good. The people they've used it
with think it is great. It seems to be far better than anything else for that
age group.

We have very good contact with school nurses who are running projects in
schools, and they really like it. They use it in drop-in clinics and sessions
that they run in places like the leisure centre.

We buy on behalf of several health promotion departments. I know it's
very popular and is used in all sorts of projects in clinics and schools.

I run the resource store for the whole of X county. I buy I Quit! for the
health promotion advisers who get requests from health visitors, district
nurses, school nurses, social workers, teachers, youth workers and so on.

I haven't used it myself but it's being used in a stopsmoking peer project
in four secondary schools. It's not been running long but we've had very
positive feedback from one school, so far.

Our current priority is developing a city-wide smoking cessation specialist
service for adults. We send I Quit! out to all Primary Care Groups and GP
practices. Adults take it - it's a popular one!