You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Treatment
Telling smokers their “lung age” promoted successful smoking cessation

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.11.3.76

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    G Parkes

    Dr G Parkes, The Limes Surgery, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, UK; parkesko@hotmail.co.uk

    QUESTION

    Does describing to patients how smoking has accelerated their age-related decline in lung function (“lung age”) increase smoking cessation rates?

    METHODS

    Design:

    randomised controlled trial.

    Allocation:

    concealed.

    Blinding:

    blinded (outcome assessors).

    Follow-up period:

    12 months.

    Setting:

    5 general practices in Hertfordshire, UK.

    Patients:

    561 current smokers ⩾35 years of age (mean age 53 y, 54% women, mean 17 cigarettes/d, mean 33 pack-y of smoking). Patients receiving oxygen or with a history of lung cancer, tuberculosis, asbestosis, silicosis, bronchiectasis, or pneumonectomy were excluded.

    Intervention:

    all patients had spirometry at baseline to measure forced expiratory volume at 1 second (FEV1). Patients in the intervention group (n = 280) were immediately given their results verbally and graphically as “lung age” (the age …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Source of funding: Health Foundation.