Smoking Cessation: How To Approach Each Stage?

People addicted to tobacco have an open door to the development of different diseases and problems for tomorrow. For this reason, health intervention is a priority objective is the process of smoking cessation. 

To achieve good results, specialists must provide the necessary support to the patient.  Do you want to know how?

Tobacco addiction: current data

According to the latest WHO report on global trends in tobacco use, the number of addicted people is more than 1.3 million. For this reason, health intervention in smoking cessation has become the gold standard for preventive actions.

Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that more than 8 million people die from tobacco each year. This figure has made it the leading cause of preventable death and disease  in the world ; making health intervention for their abandonment crucial.

For this to be effective, experts must be able to manage physical and psychological dependence on tobacco, break the automaticity associated with the act of smoking and modulate the influence of each person’s social environment on its consumption.

To do this, the first step will be to recognize the phase in which each smoker is in the process of quitting smoking.

Phases of smoking cessation

When it comes to smoking cessation, what is known as the transtheoretical model of change is followed. A model created in 1982 by the psychologists Prochaska and DiClemente with the aim of understanding and favoring the process of change in the face of a certain behavior.

In it, six phases with specific characteristics are differentiated. Contemplating the possibility of going back in the process and without having to go through each one of them. In addition, relapse is not seen as a failure, but as an opportunity to improve and increase the probability of success in a new attempt.

In this sense, the mission of the health professional will be to identify the stage of change in which the smoker is. And adjust the interventions to motivate their progression within the process.

Next, we complete the information about each of the phases of smoking cessation.

Pre-contemplation stage

At this stage, even though the person knows that smoking is not a healthy behavior, they are still not aware of the problem it poses for themselves and, therefore, they do not recognize the need to quit.

These people usually go to the consultation for another reason or because they have been pressured by their relatives. At this point, the professional’s goal will be to make the person aware of the problem and understand the importance of quitting smoking.

To do this, it is convenient to assess your degree of knowledge about the risks of tobacco use, inform you accordingly and highlight the benefits you would obtain if you quit.

Contemplation phase

In this phase, the person already knows that they have a problem and that they must stop smoking. However, although it seems that you want to do it in less than 6 months, you have mixed feelings or you do not know how to do it. That is, although you are aware of the problem, you doubt your ability to solve it.

At this point, in order for the smoker to advance in his / her smoking cessation process, the health professional will help him / her to eliminate the doubts that remain. For this, it will be essential to analyze and deepen in a personalized way on the following aspects:

• The importance of quitting smoking for the smoker.
• Degree of confidence that the smoker places in himself to achieve this. Here it is essential to promote self-efficacy by remembering other achievements throughout your life.
• Risks associated with tobacco use and reasons why the person wants to continue smoking.
• Benefits of quitting smoking and difficulties in getting it.

Preparation for smoking cessation

The preparation phase begins when the person has finally decided that they want to quit smoking.

The person is already convinced that he wants to give up tobacco and, in fact, is ready to make a serious attempt in less than 1 month. Here, the professional should:

• Congratulate you and emphasize that quitting smoking is the best decision you have made for your health and that of those around you.

• Select a date from which the person will stop using tobacco (“D-day”). As explained in the Pocket Guide for the treatment of smoking, if the person has chosen a gradual reduction, this should be started in advance so that on “D-day” tobacco is completely abandoned.
• Encourage the person to communicate their decision to their friends and family. The more people know about it, the better.
• Inform about the appearance of possible difficulties ( craving , irritability, anxiety, nervousness, fatigue, alterations in the sleep pattern, increased appetite, constipation, headache, concentration difficulties, negative influence of the social environment …) and work on those strategies useful to alleviate them.

At this stage, the priority is for the person to prepare well to quit smoking. So it is essential to make him see the process as something positive and that he understands that he has the strategies to successfully face any adversity.

Action for smoking cessation

At this point, the patient has already stopped smoking and his main objective is to continue without using tobacco. To do this, the health professional must evaluate the difficulties that the person is encountering while, in turn, consolidating those strategies that are useful to alleviate them.

In addition, it will be important to remember that the withdrawal syndrome begins to disappear from the seventh day. Therefore, it is necessary to talk about the feeling of emptiness that appears 10 days after you have stopped smoking. And we must also warn about the feeling of false security that takes place between 15 and 30 days after quitting tobacco use.

Maintenance: 6 months without smoking

The maintenance phase begins when the person has not been smoking for 6 months, although there is no talk of ex-smoker until 12 months have elapsed since the habit cessation occurs.

The professional should re-evaluate possible difficulties and reinforce the strategies to cope with them. In addition, it may be helpful to remember why you quit smoking, its drawbacks, and review the benefits that have already manifested and those that are to come.

Smoking cessation: relapse

There is talk of relapse when a person returns to smoking after having given up smoking.

At this point, it is essential that the health professional shows empathy, provides support, refrains from any punitive behavior and encourages the person to understand relapse as a good opportunity to learn and return to make another attempt with a greater probability of success.

And you? Do you start today?