Alpha Sylla
Country: Guinea
Background:
Research Project: Effectiveness of Hospital-based Smoking Cessation Interventions in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease in Saint James's Hospital
BACKGROUND: Smoking is a major global public health issue and is estimated to cause 6000 deaths in Ireland annually. Although smoking has been identified as the single most preventable cause of premature deaths in Ireland, and, smoking cessation services have been reported as being amongst the most efficient and cost-effective in medicine, the Irish Government has not yet supported or investigated smoking cessation interventions.
METHOD: This study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Fifty participants (aged between 21 and 83 years) were questioned through a structured closed-ended questionnaire at baseline survey and they then were interviewed via a phone call after six weeks of smoking cessation intervention. Quantitative data from the survey and telephone calls were analysed using SPSS version 16. With regard to qualitative data, 10 participants (aged between 21 and 63 years) took part in in-depth interviews and data from these interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis.
RESULTS: The findings indicate that over 40% of the participants were highly addicted smokers. Intensive personalised counselling was more effective than low intervention in group counselling. It emerged from the in-depth interviews that lack of knowledge about the existence of smoking cessation initiatives, lack of conscious awareness of the smoking habit versus health, the costs of medication, an insufficient number of smoking cessation specialists, time constraints and not speaking English are major barriers to accessing smoking cessation services. It was also evident from the in-depth interviews that intensive personalised counselling had a profound positive impact on smokers with cardiovascular disease.
CONCLUSION: This descriptive, cross-section study provides the foundation for further in-depth research. It lays the ground work for provision of smoking cessation interventions with clear management structures enabling more efficient planning, monitoring and objective evaluation at hospital and community levels.
Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, Nicotine dependence, heavy smoker, Counselling, Cessation rates.