Hospital smoking cessation, rehab works

ATLANTA, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- Post heart attack hospital-based smoking cessation programs, along with referrals to cardiac rehabilitation, appear to be effective, U.S. researchers said.

Emory University researchers in Atlanta studied 639 patients who smoked at the time of their hospitalization for heart attack and found that six months later, 297 of the patients -- approximately 47 percent of them -- had quit smoking.

Dr. Susmita Parashar said the odds of quitting were greater among patients who received discharge recommendations for cardiac rehabilitation and those who were treated at a facility offering an inpatient smoking cessation program. However, individual counseling was not associated with quit rates.

"The findings are important because cardiac rehabilitation and hospital-based smoking cessation programs appear to be underutilized in current clinical practice and should be potentially considered as a structural measure of healthcare quality for patients with heart attack," Parashar said in a statement.

Cardiac rehabilitation involves beginning an exercise program, nutrition counseling and counseling on heart disease risk factors.

The findings are published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.