What prevents smokers from successfully quitting? Differences between smokers and healthcare professionals in their perceptions of barriers to quitting
| Author(s)
Terry Maguire, Chris Manning and Ian Hindmarch
| | Presenter(s) |
Dr Terry Maguire Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland | Abstract Objectives
To compare and contrast the weightings smokers and healthcare professionals (HCPs) attribute to each of five categories (pharmacological, psychological, behavioural, social, sensorial) in preventing smokers from quitting.
Methods
757 respondents (305 dissonant smokers-daily smokers who wanted to reduce and/or quit smoking, 150 stop smoking advisers, 152 community pharmacists, 150 GPs) across the UK completed an online questionnaire. Pharmacists and GPs who delivered smoking cessation services were excluded. Relative weightings of the five categories were derived from multiple regression (based on Social Judgement Theory) for each of the groups of respondents. Differences in responses between smokers and HCPs were evaluated.
Results
There were differences in the importance HCPs and smokers attributed to each of the 5 categories. GPs and pharmacists attributed difficulty in quitting more to the pharmacological effects of nicotine (61%) than to social (14%), psychological (12%), behavioural (7%), or sensorial (6%) factors. In contrast, smokers attributed more to social aspects (37%), than pharmacological (32%), sensorial (14%), behavioural (10%), or psychological (7%) effects.
Conclusions
HCPs may be unaware of the importance of factors that prevent smokers from quitting. Improved understanding of the barriers from a smoker’s perspective might help HCPs in supporting smokers, improve quit rates and reduce the prevalence of smoking.
| Presenter biography Dr Maguire is a Past President of the Pharmaceutical Society of N. Ireland. He has served on the Belfast Local Commissioning Group (2006-2013), the PharmacyHealthLink and the Crown Review on Prescribing Supply and Administration of Medicines. He was Director of the N. Ireland Centre for Post-graduate Pharmaceutical Education and Training (1997 to 2002) and then worked as a Senior Principle Pharmaceutical Officer, Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety (2002-2004). He served as a member of the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) (2002 – 2006) during which time he chaired the Working Group on Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT).
Dr Maguire owns and managers two pharmacies in Belfast, Northern Ireland; he is an honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy, The Queen’s University of Belfast. His research interests include the contribution of community pharmacy to improving public health.
| Source of funding: Nicoventures Limited. Nicoventures is a consumer healthcare company established to focus exclusively on bringing licensed nicotine products to smokers looking for an alternative to cigarettes. Nicoventures Limited is a stand-alone company within the British American Tobacco Group, managed separately from the tobacco businesses.
| Declaration of interest: All authors received honoraria from Nicoventures for their contribution to this research
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