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Telling
smokers their Lung Age improves Quit Rates
Newswise — Telling smokers their lung age
significantly improves the likelihood of
them quitting, finds a study published on
bmj.com today.
The concept of lung age (the age of the
average healthy person with similar lung
function to the individual) was developed to
help patients understand complex lung data
and to show how smoking prematurely ages the
lungs.
But currently there is no evidence that this
increases quit rates.
So researchers set out to test the theory
that telling smokers their lung age would
lead to successful smoking cessation,
especially in those with most damage.
The study took place in five general
practices in Hertfordshire and involved 561
current smokers aged over 35. Information
such as age, smoking history, and medical
conditions were recorded.
All participants had a lung function test
using a spirometer (this records the volume
and rate at which a patient exhales air from
the lungs) before being split into two
random groups.
The intervention group received detailed
information about their spirometry results
and lung age, given a diagram of how smoking
ages the lungs, and told that quitting would
slow down the rate of deterioration.
The control group were given a raw figure
for forced expiratory volume in one second
(FEV1) with no further explanation.
Both groups were told that their lung
function would be measured again after 12
months to see if there had been any change.
They were also strongly encouraged to quit
and offered referral to local NHS smoking
cessation services.
Twelve months later, breath and saliva tests
confirmed that 13.6% of patients in the
intervention group and 6.4% of patients in
the control group had successfully quit.
In other words, patients in the intervention
group were around twice as likely to have
stopped smoking than those in the control
group.
However, people with worse spirometric lung
age results were no more likely to have quit
than those with normal lung age in either
the intervention or the control group.
This unexpected finding suggests that
knowing ones lung age helps a smoker to quit
whatever the result, explain the authors,
and more research is needed to investigate
the psychological reasons behind this.
Smoking cessation rates can be improved by
spirometry and lung age estimation in
primary care, say the authors.
This study supports the introduction of
screening smokers over 35 years of age to
reduce smoking and improve early diagnosis
of chronic lung disease.
They also suggest that formal economic
evaluation of this new and simple
intervention should be a research priority.
An accompanying editorial says that
providing feedback on lung age with graphic
displays seems to be the best option so far
for communicating the results of spirometry.
This strategy might also be an opportunity
for general practitioners to tailor smoking
cessation messages to the individual, as
recommended in the recent NICE guidance on
smoking cessation.
Click here to view full paper:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/march/lungage.pdf
Click here to view editorial:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/bmj/march/lungageedit.doc
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