Advice on lifestyle dilutes important smoking message

BMJ 1995;311:746 (16 September)

Letters

Advice on lifestyle dilutes important smoking message

EDITOR,--The debate about the benefits of changes in lifestylein the prevention of coronary heart disease¹ ² ³ seems to ignorea potentially important issue--that is, the extent to whichpatients' compliance with advice to stop smoking is influencedby the advice they receive about making other changes to theirlifestyle. I knew a cardiologist who sometimes avoided discussingissues such as physical exercise and diet with smokers, notbecause these issues were unimportant but because he believedthat to do so would reduce the chance that the smokers wouldheed his advice to stop smoking. Like others,¹ ² ³ he recognisedsmoking to be by far the most important risk factor for ischaemicheart disease.

Advising smokers to change their lifestyle beyond stopping smokingmay be counterproductive. Firstly, it dilutes the most importantpiece of advice with recommendations that may be of dubiousvalue. Secondly, it may be perceived by the patient as . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?

Relevant Articles

Interventions before consultations to help patients address their information needs by encouraging question asking: systematic review: Paul Kinnersley, Adrian Edwards, Kerry Hood, Rebecca Ryan, Hayley Prout, Naomi Cadbury, Fergus MacBeth, Phyllis Butow, and Christopher Butler
BMJ 2008 337: a485. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Strategies for reducing coronary risk factors in primary care: which is most cost effective?: K Field, M Thorogood, C Silagy, C Normand, C O'Neill, and J Muir
BMJ 1995 310: 1109-1112. [Abstract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

Kinnersley, P., Edwards, A., Hood, K., Ryan, R., Prout, H., Cadbury, N., MacBeth, F., Butow, P., Butler, C. (2008). Interventions before consultations to help patients address their information needs by encouraging question asking: systematic review. BMJ 337: a485-a485 [Abstract] [Full text]
Jadad, A. R, Rizo, C. A, Enkin, M. W (2003). I am a good patient, believe it or not. BMJ 326: 1293-1295 [Full text]
Smith, T. J. (2003). Tell It Like It Is. JCO 21: 12s-16 [Full text]
Detmar, S. B., Muller, M. J., Schornagel, J. H., Wever, L. D. V., Aaronson, N. K. (2002). Health-Related Quality-of-Life Assessments and Patient-Physician Communication: A Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA 288: 3027-3034 [Abstract] [Full text]
Smith, T. J. (2000). Tell It Like It Is. JCO 18: 3441-3445 [Full text]