Heino Stöver, Professor of Social Science Addiction Research at the Frankfurt University of Applied Science (UAS), has long been used to the fact that raising research funds can sometimes be complicated. However, the fact that the health authorities are not interested in finding out how people can stop smoking and what the reasons for individual failure are, irritates him.
Marie Lisa Kehler
Deputy head of the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Because smoking, he says, is the greatest avoidable health risk in Germany. According to Stöver, smoking-related diseases such as COPD or lung cancer cost billions every year, which in turn can lead to premature retirement.
So scientists from the UAS, the Center for Drug Research at the Goethe University Frankfurt (CDR) and the Center for Interdisciplinary Addiction Research at the University of Hamburg (ZIS) have joined forces to launch the Stop Smoking Study (RauS). It was examined which means and methods for smoking cessation are widespread and to what extent they are really helpful. A total of 6192 random samples from current and former smokers could be collected through an online survey.
On average, almost four serious attempts
The result should only surprise those who have never smoked themselves: 93 percent of the study participants stated that they had made at least one attempt to quit smoking. On average, the respondents needed almost four serious attempts to quit smoking before they were successful.
Anyone who has decided not to stop completely in the future, but to limit consumption and limit it only to special occasions, for example, should also take failure into account right away, explains Bernd Werse, head of the CDR. Because here, too, the respondents stated that they usually needed several attempts before there was any significant success. “The force of the dependency dynamics is underestimated,” says Stöver, who also sees this as an approach to advising those who want to change their cigarette consumption, but do not yet dare to completely do without classic cigarettes.
Fundamentally revise prevention campaigns
Between the extremes of “abstinence” and “dependency” there is still a gap that has hardly been noticed so far, he says. There is a considerable number of smokers who are concerned about their health and therefore want to significantly reduce their consumption, but do not really know how to do this. “We have to offer these people strategies,” says Stöver, and at the same time calls for a fundamental overhaul of prevention campaigns. In his opinion, men need to be addressed differently than women, and occasional smokers need a different approach than those for whom the cigarette is firmly anchored in their daily routine.
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There are many remedies and tactics to help you quit smoking. However, 61 percent of the participants named their own willpower as probably the most successful measure to quit smoking. According to the study participants, nicotine replacement products such as patches were tried most often, but also rated as the worst. On the other hand, some were able to report success with close support offers, for example through special apps or a binding cooperation with the treating doctor. In comparison, however, these measures were only rarely used. “Many people may not want to stop completely, but at least want to do some harm reduction. But that is not funded,” says Stöver.
This could be an alternative to initiate the exit process. 3,690 of those surveyed stated that they had already tried e-cigarettes as an alternative to giving up the classic combustion cigarettes – many switched completely. Werse also demands that the focus on “nicotine addiction” in smoking cessation urgently needs to be reconsidered and that the focus should be placed more on harm reduction. “Quitting smoking is a multi-attempt process. But offering alternatives can help many in the exit process.”