Exploring Smoking Habits Through Research: Examining Therapeutic Counseling

Introduction

Impressive results in treatment observed by clinicians in practice may trigger an interest to pursue more research in the exploration of the experiences. According to McKay and Shand (2018), the ability to enhance the know-how within and outside the profession is compelling to a greater extent in healthcare systems. A research question is critical in an attempt to broaden this knowledge within a research community. Smoking is among the most significant habit that requires therapy counseling from specialist to reduce and stop smoking. Lancaster (2017) suggested that individual counseling and brief advice is effective in smoking cessation attempt. Accordingly, counseling done at an increased intensity is more yielding than one at less intensive in quitting smoking. The research question used in drawing this study is "which effective interventions are possible in promoting smoking cessation in adult smokers?"

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The study by Chang, Huang, You, Hwang, Lu, and Chan (2019) on factors correlating to cessation smoking in adult-related 129 patients meeting the criteria of inclusion. Participants were comprised of 84.5% male and 15.5% females with an average age of 65.95.7 years and smoking habit of 21.811.1 rolls of cigarette in a day. Besides, the participants had an average treatment period of about 6.04.7 weeks with about 43.4% and 56.6% receiving pharmacotherapy and pharmacotherapy along with counseling respectively. In the study, there was no significant difference between the gender, consumption daily, weight of the body, smoking years and concentration of exhaled carbon monoxide. In general, 67 individuals failed to quit while 62 patients quitted. Cessation rate was approximated to be 48.1% with no specific traits between non-quitters and quitters in terms of gender, weight, and age of individual patients. Indication of these findings showed that despite the high dependency of nicotine, there is a higher possibility of quitting smoking. There was no significant difference between one-time counseling and therapy in comparison to therapy alone. These results indicated that intensive counseling along with pharmacotherapy is critical in upholding smoking cessation in adults.

Research by Lancaster and stead (2017) on the efficacy of counseling smoking cessation which involved 19000 participants conducted in 49 trials strongly supports therapy in smoking cessation. Face-to-face counseling was done on all participants for about 10 minutes along with telephone contacts. Out of the 49 trials, 33 compared counseling efficacy on smoking cessation with less support - (brief advice and usual care), 27 out of the 33 trials offered no nicotine therapy while the remaining six offered the therapy (Lancaster, 2017). The 12 trials compared the intensity of counseling (less intensive and intensive counseling) while different counseling efficacy on smoking cessation was compared in five trials. Out of every 100 individuals, 7 participants managed to quit for more than six months in the support given to control, about 10 to 12 individuals quitted where counseling was incorporated. With a combination of these results, it was determined that counseling increases smoking quitting chances between 0.4 to 0.8 percent in comparison to minimum support. Findings suggested that individually offered smoking cessation counseling assists in quitting smoking.

The study by Caponnetto, DiPiazza, Cappello, Demma, Maglia, and Polosa (2019) on official therapy and risk products of smoking on individuals indicated a strong linkage between therapy and counseling on smoking cessation. The study involved 593 participants with 59% more male persons than women with about 47.512.07 years on average. On average, individual meeting the criteria had an average use age period of 17.7 years with a smoking tenure of more than 30 years. All the participants in the research included heavy smokers with a daily consumption rate of 24.110.3 with about 71% attempting to quit smoking. Among the Participant, cessation rates included 30.2% for complete smoking stopping, 22.6% with relapse rate. For participants with therapy along with counseling, the cessation rate included 23.2%, 12.5% with relapse. The researchers used the Russell standard in smoking cessation verification across all groups. The finding of the result confirms pharmacotherapy's effectiveness in achieving cessation of smoking consistently with other studies (Caponnetto et al., 2019). The research finding was consistent with other studies on counseling and pharmacotherapy increasing quitting likelihood to about 40-80% in comparison with minimum support. According to the study by Caponnetto et al. (2019) suggested that collaborative conversation among the persons strengthened the change commitment among the individuals. Additionally, the finding demonstrated cigarette consumption reduction under various interventions. In the study, counseling combined with therapy was most effective in the achievement of smoking cessation. More evidence of the success rate was demonstrated in increased cessation by about 50-60% as a result of therapy in contrast to nicotine replacement.

A systematic review of studies by Smith, Poole, Mann, Nelson, Moore, and Brain (2019) revealed a strong relationship between counseling and quitting smoking. The research examined the outcome relevant to quitting, abstinence, dependence on nicotine, quiet determination, and social influence. In their research, 11 inclusions met the criteria. The self-reporting method was incorporated in the study that was comprised of different follow-up lengths. The study focused on ten studies addressing individual participants with motivational techniques and educational enlightenment. All studies employed motivational interventions (counseling), however, 9 out of the 10 studies conducted used a high level of counseling. Intensive measures involve education-based counseling, motivational techniques, smoking cessation versus smoking cost, and self-efficacy strategies. The finding of the research showed a decrease in smoking in participants receiving intensive interventions (including education and counseling) along with behavioral support (Smith et al., 2019). About 70% of the participant quitting attributed it to behavioral support and incentives along with awareness through educational counseling. The finding of this research is consistent with the majority of the studies that incorporate individual counseling and pharmacotherapy in support of the efficacy of combined strategies in smoking cessation in adult smokers. Although the duration of the research is not definite, it is consistent with other previously conducted research in smokers' subpopulation indicating that a more suitable method should be adopted for smoking cessation in population subgroups.

Further studies by Westerdahl, Engman, Arne, and Larsson, (2019) revealed a strong relationship between the impact of counseling on smoking cessation in adult smokers. The research involved seven studies that were randomly controlled with a total participant population of 1935 individual smokers. The first trial among the seven included a population of 45 individuals who were either 18 years with the inclusion requirement of at least 100 cigarette smoking with the last report of smoking not exceeding a month. All individual participants must not have been involved in any program of smoking cessation with no historical use of nicotine replacement therapy in their lifetime. A personal belief of individual participants was standardized along with lung assessment using Vitalograph meter and advice which followed a pharmacotherapy follow up. The proportion of smoke abstinence was taken after one month. Self-reported smoking quitting at the end of the fourth week was 22% for intensive intervention and 12% for control arms. The findings indicated that routine consultation additional to individual belief along with therapy increases significantly smoking cessation in smokers. These findings are consistent with other studies showing a similarity in the body of evidence.

Conclusion

Controversies reported within clinical set up are easily unveiled through a format approach (PICOT) that allows the researcher to define the population involved in the study, interventions applicable, draw the comparison with other research findings, showing the outcome of the study while giving a time frame for the work. Various studies conducted researchers in different setup links positively the impact of counseling and therapy on smoking cessation in smokers. Counseling provides awareness to the victims while therapy especially nicotine replacement therapy reduce the addiction severity in smokers hence help in reducing and stopping smoking.

References

Caponnetto, P., DiPiazza, J., Cappello, G. C., Demma, S., Maglia, M., & Polosa, R. (2019). Multimodal Smoking Cessation in a Real-Life Setting: Combining Motivational Interviewing With Official Therapy and Reduced-Risk Products. Tobacco use insights, 12, 1179173X19878435. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1179173X19878435

Chang, C. P., Huang, W. H., You, C. H., Hwang, L. C., Lu, I., & Chan, H. L. (2019). Factors Correlated with Smoking Cessation Success in Older Adults: A Retrospective Cohort Study in Taiwan. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(18), 3462. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/18/3462

Lancaster, T., & Stead, L. F. (2017). Individual behavioral counseling for smoking cessation. Cochrane database of systematic reviews, (3). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6464359/

McKay, K., & Shand, F. (2018). Advocacy and luck: Australian healthcare experiences following a suicide attempt. Death Studies, 42(6), 392-399. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07481187.2017.1359218

Smith, P., Poole, R., Mann, M., Nelson, A., Moore, G., & Brain, K. (2019). A systematic review of behavioral smoking cessation interventions for older smokers from deprived backgrounds. BMJ Open, 9(11). https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/11/e032727.abstract

Westerdahl, E., Engman, K. O., Arne, M., & Larsson, M. (2019). Spirometry to increase smoking cessation rate: A systematic review. Tobacco Induced Diseases, 17. https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/6662778