Health-related quality of life appears to deteriorate as the number of cigarettes smoked per day increases, even in individuals who subsequently quit smoking, according to a report in the October 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Offering smoking cessation counseling to hospitalized smokers appears to be effective as long as supportive contacts are offered for more than one month after discharge.
Nancy A. Rigotti, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues reviewed 33 trials of smoking cessation interventions that began during hospitalizations. Programs that offered telephone or in-person support lasting longer than one month improved smoking cessation rates six to 12 months after discharge.
“Adding nicotine replacement therapy to counseling may further increase smoking cessation rates and should be offered when clinically indicated, especially to hospitalized smokers with nicotine withdrawal symptoms,” the authors write.
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