Impact of health education and cognitive behavioural therapy intervention during tobacco cessation session for smokers: A comparative study in Eastern India.

Abstract

Background: Tobacco use remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Smoking cessation is the only way to fight the most feared disease in the world. Current evidence-based treatment approaches to smoking cessation include several behavioural treatments and health education-such as cognitive behavioural therapy, and individual and group counseling which tobacco cessation can help control global causes of preventable death. Health professionals play an important role in combating the tobacco epidemic. Materials and methods: All the current smokers who had participated in this study submitted their self-reported case record forms. Baseline data was collected, tobacco history was obtained, the Fagerstrom nicotine dependency questionnaire was administrated and for the quitter, a standardized cotinine test was used. The total number of participants enrolled in this study is 240, but only 190 participants completed the entire program study. Tobacco users who met the inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to three intervention groups: the health education (HE) group, the cognitive behavioural therapy group (CBT), and the combination of health education with the cognitive behavioural therapy (HE+CBT) group. All the participants were visited five times within the six-month duration. Pearson's Chi-square test, paired and unpaired t-tests, Fagerstrom score scale, and Fisher's exact test were used to test the effectiveness of all interventions among the groups. SPSS 22.0, IBM, USA, was used for the analysis of all statistical events. Results: Both groups showed no difference in attempts to quit and had no statistical significance. The reduction in Fagerstrom's score was greater in the HE+CBT group than in the individual CBT and HE groups. Among all the groups, the HE+CBT group shows more effectiveness in cessation therapy than those in the individual groups, which improves the possibility of smoking cessation. Conclusion: In term of tobacco habit reduction, the combination of HE and CBT is more effective than individual therapy for smokers. Further, it can be studied that which kind of barriers are faced by the health professionals during the practice of HE and CBT intervention in their tobacco cessation practices in order to making the sessions clinically effective and educationally more impactful, as well as the heavy tobacco users are can be given immediate attention and prior opportunity for the treatment.