Table 4 Main protocol of the Telephone Counselling (TC) and Face-to-face Counselling (FC) sessions for smoking cardiac patients
Preparation | Action | Maintenance | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Session 1 (Pre-) contemplation: Discussing the harmful effects of nicotine and the vicious cycle of nicotine dependence. Striking a balance between pros and cons of smoking and cessation. | Session 2 Preparation: Helping the patient to make the decision to quit smoking and prepare for quitting by providing information on nicotine withdrawal. | Session 3 Action: Providing information about the desire to smoke. Teaching strategies for dealing with craving and withdrawal symptoms. | Session 4 Action: Providing information about tempting (high risk) situations. Teaching coping strategies for tempting situations. | Session 5 Maintenance: Providing information about relapse and discussing strategies for how to prevent relapse to smoking. Developing an emergency plan in case the patient lapses. | Session 6 Maintenance: Choosing and discussing a theme relevant to the patient (i.e. stress, negative affect social pressure or controlling weight) to avoid relapse to smoking. | Session 7 Maintenance: Follow-up call. Evaluation of the cessation progress and discussing relapse prevention strategies. |
All sessions | ||||||
• Boost patients’ motivation to quit smoking and/or maintain abstinence; | ||||||
• Adapt the content of the session to the particular situation and need of the patient; | ||||||
• Take into account that numerous patients quit at hospitalisation and retrospectively discuss pre-action stages to enhance consciousness of smoking cessation. | ||||||
TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 1 | TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 2 | TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 3 | TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 4 | TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 5 | TC: 15 min FC: 45 min week 7 | TC: 15 min FC: 15 min week 12 |