Can emergency rooms help smokers quit?

A new study launched late November in the Vancouver General Hospital Emergency Department (ED) is combining emergency medicine with health prevention.

Dr Ka Wai Cheung, the principal investigator for the Emergency Department Smoking Cessation Study is investigating the effect of Emergency physician referral to quitnow.ca, which offers online, text, and phone smoking cessation services.

Although only about one-fifth of British Columbians smoke, up to half of all Emergency Department (ED) patients are smokers. Smokers who receive counseling while sick are more likely to quit than those who receive counseling while well, so the ED serves as a potential critical venue where smoking cessation can be started.

Many patients rely on the ED to meet their health care needsAs a large proportion of ED patients do not have a family doctor, many rely on EDs for all their health care. An opportunity for prevention related counseling was identified, and Dr. Cheung helped design a study that would see ED physicians referring patients to the QuitNow service, which together with the BC Lung Association offers advice on stopping smoking through an internet resource and 24-hour telephone help line.

Web and phone smoking cessation services work“We know that web and phone based stop smoking programs have assisted a large number of patients to quit, with effects maintained at 12 months. But previous studies have only looked at family clinics, not the Emergency Department,” says Dr. Cheung. “Ours is the first study that will examine smokers referred by the ED.”

How the study works Smokers who come to the Emergency Department at VGH are randomized into two groups, with one group receiving no tobacco cessation intervention, while the other group receives a referral by their Emergency Physician to QuitNow.  Patients will be followed for one year to see if the smoking habits of the two groups differ significantly at the end of that time period. So far, over 230 people have agreed to participate.

This ground-breaking study could lead to a change in practice in Emergency Departments across BC and even Canada.

Learn moreVisit the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute website to learn more.

Photo caption: Dr Ka Wai Cheung in photo above