Effectiveness of Health Coaching in Smoking Cessation and Promoting the Use of Oral Smoking Cessation Drugs in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Introduction: This study looked into the effectiveness of a 6 month health coaching intervention in smoking cessation and smoking reduction for patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: The study was carried out via a two-armed, double-blind, randomized-controlled trial with 68 participants at a medical center in Taiwan. The intervention group received health coaching for 6 months, while the control group only received usual smoking cessation services; some patients in both groups participated in a pharmacotherapy plan. The health coaching intervention is a patient-centered approach to disease management which focuses on changing their actual behaviors. By targeting on achieving effective adult learning cycles, health coaching aims to help patients to establish new behavior patterns and habits. Results: In this study, the intervention group had significantly more participants who reduced their level of cigarette smoking by at least 50% than the control group (p = 0.030). Moreover, patients participating in the pharmacotherapy plan in the coaching intervention group had a significant effect on smoking cessation (p = 0.011), but it was insignificant in the control group. Conclusions: Health coaching can be an effective approach to assisting patients with type 2 diabetes participating in a pharmacotherapy plan to reduce smoking and may help those who participate in pharmacotherapy plan to quit smoking more effectively. Further studies with higher-quality evidence on the effectiveness of health coaching in smoking cessation and the use of oral smoking cessation drugs in patients with type 2 diabetes are needed.

Assessing the feasibility and acceptability of a diabetes-specific nurse-led multicomponent smoking cessation intervention in diabetes education: study protocol for an open-label pragmatic randomised controlled trial

“… 27 The feasibility and acceptability assessment of a proposed diabetes-specific smoking cessation intervention for undertaking a future large-scale randomised controlled trial is particularly advisable in view of the reported low recruitment, uptake and challenges encountered in two recent smoking cessation trials carried out among individuals with DM. 28 29 These trials, which were initiated before the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2018, 28 and after the declaration of the pandemic, in August 2020, 29 did not reach the target sample size and were later terminated due to lack of funding, 28 and following the recall of varenicline which was one element of the study intervention, 29 respectively. Conducting a feasibility study will help estimate the recruitment rate and study uptake, identify potential challenges (along with mitigating factors) and assure the intervention’s acceptability among patients and providers a priori, thus ensuring that the main trial targets can be met before proceeding with a larger, definitive trial.…”