Category: Addictive Behaviors

Symposium

An Individually Tailored Smoking Cessation Intervention Delivered via Telephone for Lung Screening Patients

Keywords: Smoking | Treatment Development | Behavioral Medicine
Presentation Type: Symposium

Presenter(s)

• CL

  Christina Luberto, Ph.D.

  Massachusetts General Hospital

  Nothing to disclose

Lung cancer screening has recently been endorsed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Preventative Service Task Force, leading to a greater adoption of lung screening procedures. Approximately half of lung screening patients are current smokers and smoking cessation counseling is recommended during the lung screening process. Interventions should use evidence-based approaches and address perceived and actual risk of lung cancer and smoking-related diseases. Capturing patients in person is challenging because they may be seen across diverse locations, suggesting a need for a telehealth approach.

At a large academic medical center, we developed a 4-session telephone-based smoking cessation intervention for lung screening patients based on motivational interviewing and the 5 A’s (ask, advise, assess, assist, arrange). The first session was tailored to each patient using a computer algorithm to generate a personalized counseling script, based on responses to a baseline survey of smoking and medical history and risk perceptions. We tested the acceptability and preliminary effects of this intervention on cognitive-affective targets and smoking behaviors in an open pilot trial. Participants (N=44; M_age=61.84, SD=7.14; 63% male) completed the survey at baseline and 12-week follow-up (N=35). Participants were long-term smokers (M=46.20 years, SD=7.41) and most (64%) were not motivated to quit at baseline. During the intervention, 23% made a quit attempt and 29% decreased their smoking. At follow-up, 9% remained quit. Of those who completed all four counseling calls (N=25), there was a significant increase in confidence to quit (pp²=.24) and a trend toward increased importance to quit (p=.09, η_p²=.10). There was also a trend toward decreased personal disease risk (p=.10; d=.31) and increased comparative disease risk (p=.09; d=.37). Participants reported satisfaction with the intervention and requested more sessions. Overall, this novel smoking cessation intervention was acceptable and associated with improvements in smoking-related thoughts and behaviors, though interventions of a greater dose are needed to promote long-term quitting.