Applied Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental Health(Venue: Crowne Plaza)

Smoking cessation programs are faced with unsatisfactory results due to high dropout rates, low effectiveness and high average costs. In this scenario, the mental health team of a large Brazilian private hospital developed and conducted a research on the effectiveness of long distance smoking cessation programs. The main objective is to demonstrate the effectiveness of this service model in smoking cessation. The program´s duration is twelve weeks, with both psychological and psychiatrical evaluations for the diagnosis and a treatment proposal. The assistance to the patient is conducted through electronic media. Eleven weekly basis appointments are scheduled it. Motivation interview and preparation techniques such consideration of barriers and benefits to change, counseling regarding about the advantages of decreasing the number of cigarettes until and the definition of the smoking cessation day is used during the initial smoking cessation until the patient reaches the maintenance stage. In psychiatric care, two electronic appointments are performed for a reassessment of the initially prescribed medication (bupropion and nicotine patch). Sixty patients were treated during the research. In a preliminary analysis, there was an 18% dropout rate with an overall rate of success in smoking cessation of 70%. For patients who completed treatment, this percentage reaches 85.71%. In a preliminary analysis, researchers observed that the use of an electronic technology improves adherence to the program since patients are able to maintain their normal daily routines, eliminating the loss of time to get to the appointment, thus decreasing absenteeism and improving the effectiveness of smoking cessation. .