Smoking Cessation Therapy, Research Paper Example

PICOT question: Is the combination of behavioral therapy with nicotine replacement more successful in achieving smoking cessation than behavioral therapy alone in adults?

Evidence Based Practice domain: Therapy question domain

Literature Search: The keywords used during the literature search were smoking cessation, behavioral therapy and nicotine replacement in PubMed. The search yielded 450 results and the search was narrowed further to literatures published within the last ten years and studies focusing on humans, which narrowed the results to 15 studies.

In one of the results, one study that stood out was conducted by Buchanan et al. (2004) entitled “An Exploratory Study of Multicomponent Treatment Intervention for Tobacco Dependency”. The purpose of the study is to compare a muticomponent treatment intervention (MIT) from standard care (SC). The study was conducted in the United States and the sample consisted of 42 individuals. The researchers utilized three variables: behavioral, psychosocial and management of symptoms. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and application of ANOVA measures. The average participant in the study were middle-aged, married or has a partner, Caucasian, employed and has a high school education at the very least. The researchers found out that participants from the multicomponent group were more apt to use nicotine replacements and found to report higher rates of quitting during follow-up visits. This group also showed a higher self-efficacy rate and generated a more positive approach to behavioral interactions. Meanwhile, the group which underwent standard care were found to express more barriers towards their attempt to quit smoking. Some barriers identified include relapse, depression, stress and lack of support systems. However, researchers admit that the study has its limitations due to the small sample size and due to the fact that tobacco use and cessation of smoking is based on self-reports of the participants.

Reference

Buchanan, L.M. et al. (2004). An exploratory study of multicomponent treatment intervention for tobacco dependency. J Nurs Scholarsh. 36(4):324-30.