Brief smoking cessation intervention in hospitalized patients with cardiovascular disease

The objective of this study was to determine the smoking abstinence rate after hospital discharge in cardiovascular patients who had undergone a brief smoking cessation intervention during hospitalization. The prospective cohort study involved 252 smokers who were admitted to the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge in Catalonia, Spain. Twenty-four hours after hospital discharge, 76.6% of patients were still abstaining from smoking. At 1, 3, 9 and 12 months, the abstinence rate diminished to 71.4%, 67.2%, 64.1% and 62.2%, respectively. Patients diagnosed with ischemic cardiopathy had a significantly lower probability of a smoking relapse: hazard ratio=0.56 (95% confidence interval, 0.36-0.87). At our center, a brief smoking cessation intervention in cardiovascular patients during hospital admission was found unlikely to result in smoking abstinence following discharge.