Tobacco can be quit using simple counselling: Study

In a first of its kind study done by NGO to under tobacco cessation program, it has been found that simple tobacco counselling by healthcare providers goes a long way in motivating tobacco-users to quit. However, due to multiple reasons, healthcare providers often do not ask their patients about tobacco-use. The program has been implemented in places like hospitals, primary healthcare centres, government health programmes, workplaces, community settings and schools and tobacco cessation rates in these surroundings have been analysed.

In the two year long survey, it was found that after completion of the program around 76% people had quit the consumption of tobacco in private tertiary healthcare settings wherein there was a 45% to 75 % decline in tobacco usage in government set-ups. Likewise, schools and workplaces too have shown a decrease in tobacco consumption. Analysis showed that under the three year program, around 62% people has quit tobacco at worksites and 82% people in schools.

"During the survey, we realised that there are many people who want to quit tobacco but the challenge is we need to customise tobacco cessation programme as per their requirement," said Leni Chaudhari, program head at Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation, which anchored the two year long study.

She added that while preventing people from getting into tobacco usage is important, tobacco cessation programmes remain an integral part of anti-tobacco campaign. "We have tried to demonstrate a model for each set-up. Each place has its own challenges. The challenge in a school set-up was that they were addicted to supari – which is a gateway product for tobacco consumption. School children graduate to use tobacco if they are addicted to supari. Therefore, our cessation program for school children was different from tobacco addicts found in a workplace set-up or hospital set-up," said Chaudhari. She explained that in children, the counsellor's emphasis was to mould their thoughts, teach them to say no to tobacco as at that age, it is the peer pressure that gets them to tobacco addiction. "Unlike other set-ups, we had group sessions for school children. They were quiet responsive and we got good results as compared to others," said Chaudhari.

"The objective of LifeFirst initiative is to train healthcare professionals to help their patients quit tobacco during routine consultation, build a team of competent healthcare professionals with skills to provide evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment in a variety of healthcare settings. We also wish to create a network of healthcare providers that can stay connected and learn from each other," said Chaudhari.