A tailored intervention to support pharmacy-based counseling for smoking cessation

Abstract

Introduction: Pharmacists are uniquely positioned within the community to provide smoking cessation counseling to their patients. However, pharmacists experience significant barriers to providing counseling, including limited time, reimbursement, and training in counseling techniques. We tested a computer-driven software system, "Exper_Quit" (EQ), that provided individually tailored interventions to patients who smoke and matching tailored reports for pharmacists to help guide cessation counseling. Methods:A two-phase design was used to recruit an observationonly group (OBS; n = 100), followed by participants (n = 200) randomly assigned to receive either EQ-assisted pharmacist counseling or EQ plus 8 weeks of nicotine transdermal patch (EQ+). Both treatment groups were scheduled to receive two follow-up counseling calls from pharmacists.Results: Most participants in the EQ and EQ+ groups reported receiving counseling from a pharmacist, including follow-up calls, while none of the OBS participants reported speaking with the pharmacist about cessation. At 6 months, fewer OBS participants reported a quit attempt (42%) compared with EQ (76%) or EQ+ (65%) participants (p < .02). At 6 months, 7-day point-prevalence abstinence was 28% and 15% among the EQ+ and EQ groups, respectively, compared with 8% among OBS participants (p < .01), and EQ+ participants were twice as likely to be quit than were EQ participants (p < .01).Discussion: A tailored software system can facilitate the delivery of smoking cessation counseling to pharmacy patients. Results suggest that EQ was successful in increasing (a) the delivery of cessation counseling, (b) quit attempts, and (c) quit rates. Pharmacists can play an important role in the effective delivery of smoking cessation counseling.

Community pharmacy interventions for public health priorities: a systematic review of community pharmacy-delivered smoking, alcohol and weight management interventions

“…Eligibility criteria for participants in the smoking cessation interventions consisted of measures of nicotine dependence, which varied across the interventions. Four studies 52,[57][58][59] reported the baseline number of cigarettes smoked per day, and this ranged between 20 and 23 cigarettes per day for three studies; 52,58,59 and one study reported a baseline of 42 cigarettes per day. 58 Another four studies reported only Fagerström scores (scored 0-10, with higher scores reflecting a greater dependence on nicotine), which ranged from 3 in a group of young adults with a mean age of 24 years 53 to around 6 for three studies.…”

“…74 We extracted data from all these additional publications with the exception of the Danish 73 and the Spanish publication. 74 Three smoking cessation interventions 52,55,60 appeared to be targeted at pharmacy staff as well as clients; the remaining 21 studies were targeted at pharmacy clients alone. There were 19 RCTs, [44][45][46]48,52,53,55,[57][58][59][60]63,64,[66][67][68][70][71][72] three nRCTs 39,56,69 and two CBAs.…”

“…There were 19 RCTs, [44][45][46]48,52,53,55,[57][58][59][60]63,64,[66][67][68][70][71][72] three nRCTs 39,56,69 and two CBAs. [49][50][51]65 There were 22 published journal articles 39,[44][45][46][49][50][51][52][53][55][56][57][58][59][60]63,64 and two reports. 48,65 Nine studies were conducted in the UK, 46,[48][49][50][51]56,…”

“…[49][50][51]65 There were 22 published journal articles 39,[44][45][46][49][50][51][52][53][55][56][57][58][59][60]63,64 and two reports. 48,65 Nine studies were conducted in the UK, 46,[48][49][50][51]56,65,66,68 four in the USA, 39,44,52,64 two each in Australia, 45,53 South America 69,71 and Spain, 69,70 and one each in Canada, 55 Denmark, 63 Japan, 59 Thailand 67 and the Netherlands.…”

Online Patient Education for Chronic Disease Management: Consumer Perspectives

“…Although more features were identified, twenty-four design features identified initially received strong support in our survey of patients and carers, considering that these features would give more benefit to OPE sites for chronic disease management. Respondents viewed interactive quizzes as part of the tailoring features align with literature, given tailored feedback at the end of each questionnaire [88,89]. Consumer behaviour studies [90] indicated that well designed websites will have an effect on consumers behaviour [91].…”