QUIT Forum -

The research from the fall 2010 issue of CPhA’s Translator on smoking cessation was highlighted in the February 2011 issue of Pharmacy Today, the official publication of the American Pharmacists Association. The first study highlighted showed the value of pharmacist intervention in smoking cessation—patients in an intervention group participated in three face to face group sessions with a pharmacy team, while the control group received 5-10 minute phone conversations. The patients set a quit date and either chose buproprion or NRT for treatment. The study showed that at the end of 6 months, 93% of those that had quit successfully had undertaken the face-to-face sessions. Also, more patients in the face-to-face group had quit smoking than those in the control group.
Highlighted in the article was also the value of housing a smoking cessation program in an interprofessional setting, such as a hospital clinic, since pharmacists are then in an ideal situation to educate patients and other healthcare professionals alike on their knowledge, accessibility, and ongoing support for patients wanting to quit smoking.
Finally, the six-step transtheoretical model of change, important for a pharmacist to remember when counseling a patient wanting to quit smoking, was explained in the APhA article. The six steps are: precontemplation (action may take place in the distant future, i.e. the next 6 months), contemplation (intention to change within the next 6 months), action (specific modifications in lifestyle have been made in the past 6 months), preparation (experimenting with small changes), and maintenance (working to prevent relapse).