Does physical excerise in addition to a multicomponen smoking cessation program increase abstinence rate and suppress weight gain? An intervention study

Tobacco use is considered the single most preventable cause of premature mo rbidity and mortality. Smoking cessation programs aim at two interrelated p urposes, to help people to give up smoking and to prevent relapse. A multic omponent intervention consisting of nicotine replacement therapy, health ed ucation, behaviour modification therapy and counselling is widely recommend ed in the health care literature. Smoking cessation studies from a nursing perspective are few. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to co mpare outcomes of two nurse-managed 1-year group smoking cessation interven tions. Intervention 1 (n = 34) was provided at a health care centre and con sisted of nicotine replacement therapy, health education, behavioural modif ication and individual and group counselling. In intervention 2 (n = 33), p rovided in a health club, physical exercise was added to the intervention p rovided in 1. Participants were self-referred with equal numbers in both in terventions. A nonsignificant difference in lapse free abstinence time (LFA T) at 1 year was demonstrated between intervention 1 (20.6%, n = 7) and int ervention 2 (39.4%, n = 13) (p = 0.16, odds ratio = 2.5). The difference in weight gain between intervention groups was also nonsignificant. Within in tervention comparison between abstinent participants and smokers showed tha t abstinent participants had gained significantly more weight than smokers in intervention 2 (p = 0.001), but in intervention 1 the difference was non significant (p = 0.2). The small sample size in the study detracts from the significance of the findings. However, a trend is observed showing that ph ysical exercise increases the abstinence rate of participants. The conclusi on is drawn that a multicomponent smoking cessation program that includes p hysical exercise might be an effective intervention, but further studies wi th a larger sample size are needed.