The efficacy evaluation of interventions with tobacco’s consumers: an action that modifies the discursive

configuration Dalila Barbanera and Eleonora Pinto

Department of Psychology – University of Padua, Italy • E-mail: labsalute.psicologia@unipd.it

Evaluation praxis and scientific criteria

Definition of efficacy evaluation

The efficacy of a project/intervention, in methodological terms, is definable as the gap between the aim put before in the project/intervention and the outcome that we get, therefore the efficacy evaluation praxis is a step that cannot be omitted to state the achievement of the aims put before(SEE THE SYMPOSIUM TITLED “THE ‘CHAIN’ OF PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY ACCORDING TO THE DIALOGICAL MODEL”)

Theoretical frame:Theoretical frame: (SEE THE GENERAL INTRODUCTION) The epistemological level in which the efficacy evaluation here presented takes place is the Narrativistic Paradigm: it sets the knowledge modalities used by interacting speakers as the basis assumption; that is we know reality and the reality is shaped in virtue of discursive practices used by speakers interacting, as regards the particular reality considered. Coherently with the epistemological level made clear, the reference theoretical frame, in which the efficacy evaluation praxis presented is set, is the Dialogical Identity Theory. The basis assumption of Dialogical Identity Theory is that reality is given by the relation between three polarities: common people, account, narration. The discursive practices used by these three polarities give the configuration of discursive identity of the reality considered.

COMMON PEOPLE(mass media discursive practices, institutions and community)

TOBACCO'S CONSUMER

NARRATION (3rd person narration)

(friends and relatives' discursive practices; experts who put in action the course for quitting smoking)

ACCOUNT (1st person narration)(How the smoker talks about him/herself)

Aim of research .

The object of research (in which the efficacy evaluation praxis lies) consists in the whole discursive practices of the participants in the course for smokers. The aim of the research project is the survey of possible changes - in the discursive practices of the participants in the course - through which we can identify a change, a gap in relation to the ones used at the beginning of the course. In this sense, “sign” of the efficacy is the survey of discursive practices modified, as regards the construction of reality “smoker”, used by the participants, in relation to the beginning and the end of the course.

(YOU CAN FIND AN OTHER CONTRIBUTE ABOUT EFFICACY EVALUATION IN THE PAPER “THE EFFICACY EVALUATION OF THE INTERVENTIONS APPLIED TO PEOPLE WITH “EATING DISORDERS” “)

METHODOLOGY AND INSTRUMENTS USED

M.A.D.I.T:Methodology of analysis of textual data

The object of research is the text, that is the discursive practices of the speakers.

Instrument: open questions questionnaire constructed ad hoc

For example: • “Such description is certainly about a period before the course”

• “Indicate those aspects modified by the course”

• “Indicate the reasons why you would attend the course again”

M.A.D.I.T analyses “how” discursive practices of people interviewed are constructed,

surveying discursive repertories

Methodological steps for the course's

efficacy evaluation praxis

T0Beginning of treatment

T1End of treatment

T2Six months after the end of treatment

QUESTIONNAIRE TELEPHONE INTERVIEW

Aim: Surveying participants' set about tobacco's use

Aim:

Knowing how many participants quitted smoking

Survey discursive repertories to keep on smoking/not smoking

Group object of research

telephone interviews

77 quitted smokingquitted smoking

With regard to the same questions asked at T1 Summary table of

Discursive repertories surveyed at T2

6 months after the end of the course

What happens is connected with what I do

Who quitted smokingWho quitted smoking Who did not quit smokingWho did not quit smoking

Choice repertorySuccess repertory

Justification repertory

Moral judgement repertoryChoice repertorySuccess repertoryDiscovery repertoryAdaptation repertory Purposes repertory

Hope repertory

Moral judgement repertoryJustification repertory

What happens is connected with what I doWhat happens is

connected with external conditions (personal features, course's conditions)

What happens is connected with external conditions

(personal features, no knowledge)

= =

=

Considering the variable 'time', we stress that the course did not change the

speakers' discursive practices; moreover who quitted smoking at the

course's end and after six months was smoking again,

uses the same discursive modalities used by people

who never quitted smoking.4 4

never quitted never quitted smokingsmoking

18 participants

1111 did not quit smokingdid not quit smoking

7 7 quitted smoking, quitted smoking, then they began then they began

againagain

CONCLUSIONS: The efficacy evaluation of the course for smokers points out that dialogical identity of “smoker”/”not smoker” does not change at all, in virtue of participation in a course whose aim is quitting smoking, identifying such activity as the unique element which can characterize people's biography. Therefore, organizing a course for smokers means surveying the reality configurations of participants at the beginning; because of tobacco's legality in our society, taking a picture of the reality configurations can offer the experts of the course those elements to calibrate the course in virtue of different participants' sets. In other words, the course should offer different instruments in virtue of different dialogical identities of participants, because, if at the beginning of the course -as in the research here presented- participants already use discursive practices configuring a change, the expert could set the interventions in order to point out the change working in progress. Meanwhile, if participants use typing processes, the expert will use instruments which can stop this argumentative coherence, therefore making the change start (not stressing it, as in the previous situation).

By the light of “how” people talk about themselves is the peculiar element for the identity's change, discursive practices used by participants in the course allow to anticipate possible ways for the suspension of tobacco's use, they do not give pre-definite strategies, just using what tobacco's consumers reality configures. These aspects allow the expert to anticipate what kind of instruments can be used in virtue of participants' set, in order to point out/originate the biographical change and make it lasting.

Epistemological adequacy: intervention's aim, evaluation's aim, its pertinent methodology and the research object, must be set on the same level of epistemological realismMethodological correctness: Theoretical presuppositions, evaluation's strategies put in action, instruments and methodology used, must be coherent each others

Actually, in Psychology, the efficacy evaluation is an important element to support the actions' legitimation put in practice. In fact, when we have the instruments to value how much the objective put before has been achieved in terms of outcome, on the one hand, we are able to 'recalibrate' methodological/operative actions, on the other hand, we are able to make the project/intervention repeatable in others contests.

Scientific criteria for the planning and the

management of efficacy evaluation praxis