Hospital-based smoking cessation program after heart attack adds to success

Hospital-based smoking cessation programs, along with referrals to cardiac rehabilitation, appear to be associated with increased rates of quitting smoking following heart attack, according to a report in the October 13, 2008, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Emory University researchers studied 639 patients who smoked at the time of their hospitalization for heart attack. Six months later, 297 of the patients – approximately 47 percent of them - had quit smoking. 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