NHS smoking cessation therapies are effective
Intensive NHS smoking cessation treatments are effective in helping smokers to quit, new research shows.
Group treatment may be more effective than one to one therapy; and buddy support interventions, where smokers pair up to support each other, can more than double the quit rate in some types of treatment, the study in the Journal of Public Health found.
People in some groups—younger people, women, pregnant women, and smokers from more deprived areas—seem less likely in the short term to be able to quit, the review found.
The authors of the study, which was based on a systematic review commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), say that cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in England, resulting in an estimated 86 500 deaths a year and costing the NHS around £1.5bn ({euro}1.8bn; $2.5bn) annually
“In contrast to other reviews of smoking cessation interventions, it provides evidence of effectiveness in real-world settings,” write the authors, who say that the United Kingdom remains the only country to have a comprehensive cessation service that is free at the point of use.
The authors say that two of the 20 reviewed studies indicate that group treatment is more effective than one to one treatment. One found that group counselling substantially improved rates of quitting (as validated by carbon monoxide monitoring), while the second study, in primary care, showed that 30% of people who underwent group treatment and 19% who had one to one treatment were found to be continuously abstinent at four weeks.
One study that looked at “buddy” interventions with individual counselling found that the odds of patients in the buddy group remaining abstinent at four weeks was 2.6 times that among patients in the solo group. But another study found that such buddy interventions do not substantially increase effectiveness where the treatment is given in group situations.
One study found that the quit rate at four weeks in the more intensive NHS smoking cessation services, at 44% of patients, was double that in the less intensive, pharmacy delivered interventions, which achieved quit rates of around 20%.
Several studies found that women were less likely than men to achieve short term
abstinence through the NHS’s smoking cessation services. One study targeted at younger, pregnant women from deprived backgrounds found a medium term (12 week), carbon monoxide validated quit rate of 20% and a longer term quit rate of 13%.
“The available evidence suggests that NHS stop smoking services are effective in supporting smokers to quit in the short and longer term,” the authors wrote. “There is good evidence that older smokers are more likely to quit successfully than young smokers. Men also appear to be more successful at quitting than women, despite the fact that more women attend the smoking cessation services.”
Copyright © Bmj
