Evaluation Design

METHODS

SAMPLE

All participants in the TCGS running in October 2009 and April 2010 were invited to participate in the evaluation. Each program group was limited to 22 participants, and a minimum of 5 participants were required in order to run the program.

DATA COLLECTION TOOLS

The sessions' feedback questionnaires were developed by the KFL&A Public Health's Research and Education Division (RED) in collaboration with members of the Adult Health team and the Tobacco Control Team (Appendix 3). A pre-intervention questionnaire was administered at the beginning of the first session. Session questionnaires were administered at the conclusion of each session. A post-intervention questionnaire was administered at the last formal session.

The TCGS program leader completed a feedback form that collected process evaluation data (Appendix 2).

DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYSIS

All data were entered into SPSS Version 15 for Windows. From the smoking cessation stage of change question, each response option was associated with a stage of change (Figure 1). Frequency distributions of smoking cessation stage of change were calculated at pre-intervention (Session 1) and at post-intervention (Session 8). The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to compare pre- intervention stages of change to post-intervention stages of change.

In addition to smoking cessation stages of change, changes in the respondents' ratings of level of importance, confidence and readiness to quit smoking from pre-intervention to post-intervention were examined. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test was used to compare pre-intervention and post- intervention rating scores. The alpha level, the level of significance, was set at .05; meaning there 

was a 5% chance of declaring an effect even if there was no actual effect. Session content was assessed in terms of importance of session content and respondents' confidence levels with respect to skills taught, intention to use skills, and actual use of skills during the 8-week program.

Satisfaction levels with the program and the session content were assessed. Open-ended responses about session content and overall program satisfaction were described qualitatively. All analysis was conducted by a KFL&A Public Health's RED staff member (DM).