A course has been designed at UNMC to teach people from varied backgrounds the skills and techniques to help smokers break their cigarette dependency.
“Quitting smoking shouldn’t be a one-person battle,” said David Daughton, a researcher in the internal medicine department and the course’s instructor. “Smokers who receive adequate counseling support have a greater chance of quitting than those who receive none, but many times the people in a smoker’s support system don’t have the proper training.”
Many people who are in positions to help smokers quit lack the skills and materials to intervene effectively, Daughton said.
“Surveys show that in primary care offices, a majority of smokers who see their clinicians for a visit will be provided with no information for smoking cessation,” he said. “Many health-care providers don’t think they have the time or skills to help their patients quit. The reality is that brief interaction can be very effective.”
Daughton and Stephen Rennard, M.D., director of the Nebraska Office of Tobacco Control and Research, have developed a training course using different levels of smoking intervention. The course uses role-playing to expose trainees to a variety of situations and circumstances smokers may have, Daughton said.
“The intensity of the intervention depends on the smoker’s readiness to quit,” Daughton said. “The set of techniques for counseling a smoker who is not ready to quit won’t be as involved as the techniques for helping a smoker who wants to quit in the next 30 days. The course teaches how to personalize quitting for each smoker.”
The course teaches interventionists to tailor the stop-smoking approach by helping smokers identify people in their lives who will support them, helping smokers evaluate what quitting methods may work best and scheduling follow-up contact after the smoker’s quit day.
“If you know that your health-care provider is going to call to check up on you, you may feel more accountable for your stop-smoking efforts. That’s why a brief phone contact can enhance a smoker’s ability to quit,” Daughton said. “At the phone contact, the counselor can congratulate the smoker on their efforts and offer support and suggestions for any problems he or she is having.”
Smoking cessation medications, such as Zyban, nicotine gum and nicotine patches, may help those who smoke 15 or more cigarettes a day and who have had difficulty quitting in the past, Daughton said. The course provides interventionists with information on the pros and cons of each medication and detailed instructions on how the medications are used.
“Many of the first studies in the nation to determine the effectiveness of nicotine gum, nicotine patches and medications, such as Zyban, were performed here at UNMC, so we’re in a prime position to help guide smokers on how to use these products,” Daughton said. “A lot of information isn’t well-known to the consumer or even to the person who’s in a position to prescribe medication. For example, not many people know that the effectiveness of nicotine gum decreases dramatically when caffeine is consumed at the same time.”
Additionally, Daughton designed a reference booklet specifically for smokers who want to quit in the next 30 days. To help with the process of quitting, the booklet reminds smokers of the negative consequences of cigarette smoking and lists suggestions for how to cope with withdrawal symptoms.
Course training sessions have been held in Kearney, Scottsbluff and Omaha. In the future, Daughton said he hopes to extend the program to include more counselor training programs, and to design course training guides tailored specifically for high schools, colleges, medical offices and work sites.
To learn more about the course, contact Daughton at (402) 559-7909.