A comparison of four international surveys of tobacco dependence treatment provision: implications for monitoring the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

AIMS

Article 14 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) requires countries to implement systems to provide tobacco dependence treatment. We report on global efforts to monitor the implementation of Article 14, and compare the surveys used in this effort.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional comparison of agreement (concordance and discordance) among the four main surveys used to monitor tobacco dependence treatment provision.

SETTING

Four global surveys of tobacco treatment provision.

PARTICIPANTS

The four surveys were Raw et al. (2009), the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA) Monitor, World Health Organization (WHO) MPOWER survey and the FCTC Party Reports.

MEASUREMENTS

Concordance as measured by percentage providing the same answers, as well as kappa statistic of inter-rater agreement.

FINDINGS

The four surveys used to monitor Article 14 implementation vary widely in countries sampled, questions asked, respondent characteristics and survey design. The four surveys generally show a moderate to high concordance (kappa > 0.60) with each other across most survey pairs and most domains, except for the MPOWER and FCTC Party governmental surveys (63% overall concordance, kappa =0.26). This concordance was lower than any other survey pair examined. Government respondents to the WHO MPOWER and FCTC Party Report surveys provided answers to the same question domains with relatively poorer concordance than those from surveys of non-governmental or mixed governmental/non-governmental sources.

CONCLUSIONS

Current surveys of tobacco dependence treatment provision are in general agreement with each other except for the two official government surveys that rely on governmental respondents. We believe that this points to the continued need for independent non-governmental monitoring of FCTC protocol implementation.