Stop smoking work not helping young

by LotusFlower | September 10, 2008 at 10:12 pm

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In the UK some local health authorities will not generally work with under 16s on smoking cessation because of working to essentially adult targets and the belief that such work doesn't work. This report seems to back that assertion up but digging deeper it could be that the programmes offered do not match young people's needs in that they are often only slightly adapted from adult programmes. Most dependent young smokers express a desire to quit but many start again when their cessation programme ends. Learning to cope with the fact that there may be adult smokers in their household or even working directly with the household to move it towards being a smoke free household may be the key to helping more young smokers stop smoking and stay non-smokers.

Some areas like Leicester City Education Department and the Leicester STOP! service are already trying to adress this by producing Stop Smoking Toolkits and training packages for education workers to help them help young people to give up for good.

Smoking cessation programmes often fail to help young people because they do not see themselves as lifelong smokers and believe the interventions are for older people, according to a British Medical Journal report.

Report authors Dr Gill Grimshaw, of Warwick University Medical School, and Alan Stanton, of Solihull Care Trust, said several Scottish NHS programmes had struggled to recruit young smokers. After one year only 11 young people - 2.4 per cent - from all seven projects managed to quit long term.