Home health care nurses have access to hard to reach and difficult to treat populations who are at the highest risk for smoking-related diseases. |
Patients that enroll in smoking cessation programs on their own are highly motivated to quit, but represent a very small portion of the smoking population. Using an existing health channel to reach smokers who vary in their motivation level to quit could have a significant public health impact. |
We communicated to the patients that the carbon monoxide they inhale from smoking cigarettes is the same poisonous gas that comes out of the tail pipe of their car. |
We found that while both types of home-based counseling resulted in individuals quitting smoking or making positive strides towards quitting, those in the motivational enhancement group outperformed the standard care group in every measure. |