Co-occurring psychological disorders have been found to lower clients' readiness to change their addictive behaviours [ 18], resulting in poor treatment outcomes.
17 Tobacco-related questions focused on each client's readiness to quit smoking (precontemplation, contemplation, preparation and action); smoking history; smoking status; smoking destinations; cessation history; cessation motivations; and perceived confidence, importance and difficulties associated with smoking cessation (all three were based on a scale of 1 100, from the least to the most).
Consultants can gauge and develop a client's readiness and commitment to change by considering the following questions.
How can we shape the process and influence the relationship to increase the client's readiness for needed corrective action?
The most significant obstacle to the adoption of the framework is the industry commitment and the client's readiness to pay for additional services.
This method, in which a client's readiness to change, ambivalence and motivation are assessed and goal setting and changing of unhealthy behavior are reinforced, in collaboration with the client, has proven to be effective in various settings [ 18- 21].
The physician assessed each client's readiness to quit smoking, strengthened each client's motivation to quit smoking using the 'five R's' (relevance, risks, rewards, roadblocks and repetition), 22 and provided advice on ways of overcoming psychological cravings, psychological dependence and sociocultural factors associated with tobacco dependency.
Oteng-Ntim et al. [ 28] identified client motivation and readiness to change as barriers to the effectiveness of service providers' efforts to promote healthy lifestyles for pregnant women.
Furthermore, only 40% of staff reported counseling clients on complication readiness, but structured observations revealed that no staff did.
However, only 40% of the respondents, more doctors than the other health workers, reported counseling clients on complication readiness.
