Could counselling sessions with a school nurse really help high school students quit smoking?
Researchers, who studied 1000 teens who said they wanted to quit smoking,
wrote in the journal Paediatrics that close to 11% of those who got
counselling for 3 months had quit smoking, compared to 6% of those who
only received educational pamphlets.
Is it really effective?
But a year after the sessions, there was no difference in smoking rates based on what kind of assistance teens had gotten from their nurses.
"It's
nice that there was some effect at 3 months, what we really care about
is sustained cessation," said Michael Siegel, who studies tobacco
control at the Boston University School of Public health but wasn't
involved in the study.
The method
In
the 35 Massachusetts schools covered in the study, half the nurses were
trained to give their students one-on-one counselling based around goal
setting and problem solving, including making a plan to quit and then
preventing relapses.
The other nurses gave students information
pamphlets on quitting smoking and volunteered to answer any questions
they had about the process. Both groups of nurses saw their students at
four weekly sessions, ranging from 10 to 30 minutes.
The
counselling intervention appeared to especially help boys in the short
run. Those who had made goals and tracked progress with the nurses were 3
times more likely to say they had stopped smoking than boys in the
"control" group.
Other smoking
cessation experts noted that relapsing into smoking is the biggest
hurdle at any age, and that teens were especially likely to do so. But
they added that the more options teens had for help, the better.
How would you get your teen to stop smoking?
By: Genevra Pittman (Reuters)