Predicting relapse proneness among smokers in rural Arkansas health clinic

Audience:

Individuals with moderate level of experience in tobacco control.  Cross cutting cessation, nicotine and science of addiction, non-cigarette tobacco and nicotine products.

Key Points:

Smoking cigarettes is a highly significant health threat.  Pharmacotherapy and counseling have been shown to increase quit rates which reduce the smoker’s risk of suffering from smoking-related disease.  According to the Arkansas 2008 Adult Tobacco Survey more than 4,900 lives are lost to tobacco use annually in Arkansas.  Approximately 47.3% of Arkansans surveyed in 2008 had made one or more attempt to quit smoking in a 12 month period.   Tobacco dependence is a chronic disease.  Clinicians recognize the long-term nature of the disease and should expect that smokers may experience relapse and remission until they achieve an ultimate non-smoker status.   Relapse is a major problem in those attempting to quit smoking.  Clinicians’ understanding and assessment of relapse proneness could be useful clinical information to develop treatment selection and duration.

Educational Experience:

The poster will detail a prospective research project that will be conducted over six months in a rural health setting.  The use of the Wisconsin Predicting Patients’ Relapse (WI-PREPARE) to evaluate a smoker’s short and long term relapse proneness will be described.   The investigator will answer questions about the study during the poster session.

Benefits:

Learning about one assessment tool used to evaluate smoker’s short and long term risk of relapse.  Recognizing the pharmacist’s role as an integral healthcare team member to help health systems care for patients who wish to quit smoking.