Web-based smoking cessation interventions can succesfully help smokers to quit. As healthcare professionals, such as general practitioners and practice nurses, often indicate a lack of time and resources to offer their patients extensive face-to-face help for smoking cessation, this study investigated the integration of a web-based intervention in the general practice setting.
In this study, which was conducted by Eline Smit and colleagues from Maastricht University, the effects of web-based multiple computer tailoring and a single counseling session by a practice nurse were compared with effects of computer tailoring without counseling and usual smoking cessation care. Results showed that, both after 6 and after 12 months, no effects were identified. This suggests that a web-based multiple computer-tailored smoking cessation program combined with a single face-to-face counseling session by a practice nurse may not be more effective than this computer-tailored program alone or than usual smoking cessation care in the general practice setting. Yet before we conclude that the addition of counseling to web-based computer tailoring cannot be successful, more research needs to be conducted to identify the optimal number of counseling sessions to be combined with such a web-based program and to how to best attune the two modalities. For the time being, the integration of web-based smoking cessation help in the general practice remains promising, but determining the exact manner of integration is still a challenge.
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Published on 17-04-2016