Public Health and Nursing

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is mostly caused by smoking and patients’ prognoses are related to whether or not they continue to smoke after diagnosis. Quitting is therefore crucial to COPD treatment, but many patients find it difficult to stop smoking. To investigate which factors influence quit attempts among patients with COPD, our research group interviewed smokers with COPD to identify factors associated with success in quitting. These factors were used to develop the Trying to quit smoking Questionnaire (TTQ), which measures pressure-filled mental states, use of destructive pressure-relief strategies and ambivalent thoughts about quitting. This study evaluated whether the TTQ could predict smoking cessation outcomes in smokers with COPD. One hundred and nine smokers ompleted the TTQ at baseline and three months later. Logistic regression was used to measure the association between TTQ scores and making at least one quit attempt, reducing the intensity of smoking, and achieving abstinence. Higher total TTQ scores were significantly associated with a lower probability of at least one quit attempt. In a secondary analysis, we found that patients who were ready to make a quit attempt but also experienced pressure-filled mental states had a lower probability of attempting to quit. However, patients who did not feel ready to quit and who simultaneously experienced pressure-filled mental states halved the number of cigarettes they smoked. The TTQ can identify specific mental processes related to success in quitting and can be useful when counselling patients with COPD who need to quit smoking.