Hospitalized patients who smoke may be more likely to quit smoking through the use of hypnotherapy than patients using other smoking cessation methods according to a study presented at the annual meeting of American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP).
Smoking patients who participated in one hypnotherapy session were more likely to be nonsmokers at 6 months compared with patients using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) alone or patients who quit "cold turkey". 'Our results showed that hypnotherapy resulted in higher quite rates compared with NRT alone", said Faysal Hasan, MD, FCCP, North Shore Medical Center, Salem, MA. "Hypnotherapy appears to be quite effective and a good modality to incorporate into a smoking cessation program".
Dr. Hasan and colleagues from North Shore Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital compared the quit rates of 67 smoking patients with a cardiopulmonary diagnosis. All patients were approached about smoking cessation and all included in the study were patients who expressed a desire to quit smoking. At discharge, patients were divided into four groups based on their preferred method of smoking cessation treatment: hypnotherapy, NRT and hypnotherapy and a group of controls who preferred to quit "cold turkey". All patients received self-help brochures. The control group received brief counseling, but other groups received intensive counseling, free supply of NRT and/or a free hypnotherapy session within 7 days of discharge, as well as follow up telephone calls at 1, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 26 weeks after discharge. Patients receiving hypnotherapy also ere taught to do self-hypnosis and were given tapes to play at the end of the session.
At 26 weeks after discharge, 50 percent of patients treated with hypnotherapy alone were nonsmokers, compared with 50 percent in the NRT/hypnotherapy group, 25 percent i the control group and 15.78 percent in the NRT group.
"As physicians, we are constantly reviewing new approaches for smoking cessation and revisiting existing approaches to confirm their effectiveness", said Alvin V Thomas, MD, FCCP, President of the American College of Chest Physicians. "The results of this study and many others confirm that using multimodality approach to smoking cessation is optimal for success".
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