BMC Public Health has published the results of a Union study that showed 66.8% of TB patients who were current smokers quit when brief advice on smoking cessation and smokefree homes was provided as part of their routine TB care. The study was conducted in 17 primary healthcare centres in Bogor City, Indonesia in coordination with the Directorate of Disease Control and Environmental Health and the Bogor City Health Office.
Smoking has been proven to increase the risk of developing active TB disease, to delay in TB diagnosis and treatment, to increase the risk of TB transmission, to worsen treatment outcomes and to increase the risk of recurrent TB after treatment. Consequently supporting TB patients’ efforts to stop smoking – or not take up the habit – is a priority both for these patients and their communities.
The intervention tested in Bogor City is known as the ABC approach (A= Ask, B= Brief advice, C= Cessation support) and was developed by a working group of The Union’s Adult & Child Lung Health and Tobacco Control Sections, and implemented by The Union Asia Pacific. It enables TB services to help patients quit smoking and make their homes smokefree as part of their routine activities. Simple, short and systematic, the ABC approach can be delivered in 5–10 minutes by any healthcare worker.
The study involved 750 TB patients of whom 77.6% were current smokers, 5.3% were ex-smokers and 17.1% had never smoked. The results showed that 66.8% of the smokers quit smoking by the end of their six-month TB treatment. The proportion of current smokers with a smokefree home increased from 16.5% at baseline to 85.9% at month six.
The ABC approach has also been piloted with successful results in Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, China, Mongolia, South Africa, Japan and India.
Read the article:
Bam TS, Aditama YA, Chiang C-Y, Rubaeah R, Acep S. Smoking cessation and smokefree environments for tuberculosis patients in Indonesia-a cohort study. BMC Public Health 2015, 15:604.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/15/604
Download the guide:
Smoking cessation and smokefree environments for tuberculosis patients (The Union, 2nd ed, 2010)