In the current study, sustainability was described as maintaining an implemented innovation and its benefits over a longer period of time after the implementation project has ended.
To test the effects of a school-based prevention programme on students' smoking-related behaviour, attitudes and knowledge 6 months after implementation over 2 school-years has ended.
Findings presented refer to effects of programme participation on smoking-related knowledge, attitudes towards smoking, perceived norms of smoking, self-efficacy to resist cigarette offers and actual smoking behaviour 6 months after the implementation over 2 school-years has ended, that is, on an average, 26 months after baseline.
Unfortunately, after a collaborative project has ended, teams usually do not plan activities to maintain the implementation successes achieved [ 39].
Even after successful implementation, practice seems to indicate that there is a tendency to return to old routines after implementation activities have ended.
Participants' characteristics are presented in Table 2. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews [ 23] were conducted at each working site from May to September 2009 - approximately two years after that the intervention package was established and the implementation phase had ended.
However, it is well known that compliance rates often drop and return to pre-intervention levels when specific implementation efforts have ended [ 6, 20], and one question still remains unanswered: What are the crucial components that lead to sustainability of innovations in health care [ 21, 22]?
A CRM change team was formed in each trained ICU to stimulate and facilitate the implementation of CRM initiatives after the training had ended.
"Such international get-togethers have ended with lofty statements and commitments which have not, sadly, been delivered or moved to implementation," said Mary chiefry-Hesse, chief adviser to President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana.
After a review of extant literatures on existing DfD practices and tools, it became evident that none of the tools is BIM compliant and that BIM implementation has been ignored for end-of-life activities.
A wide range of technical and management solutions towards this end are already available, but so far implementation has been too slow and too little.
