2010 年 37 巻 4 号 p. 490-492
Recently, deaths due to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) have been increasing slightly in Japan. Pulmonary function test is indispensable for establishing a diagnosis of COPD. At present, however, pulmonary function test has been added to only several percent of health checkups. Since most of those demonstrating COPD are smokers, countermeasures against smoking are important. We investigated the effectiveness of interventions to promote smoking cessation within the short time available.
Subjects were 382 smokers (199 intervention group and 183 control group) who worked for three different manufacturing companies in Okayama prefecture. On the day of health checkup, physicians provided simple guidance on smoking cessation for approximately 1-2 minutes based on the degree of readiness for smoking cessation for each individual in the intervention group. The adjusted odds ratios of point prevalence abstinence rate by multiple logistic regression analysis were 1.56, 1.51 at the six months and one year follow-up, and 3.41, 3.17 among smokers who were planning to quit smoking within the next six months. There were no significant differences due to small sample size, but these results would suggest the effects of brief intervention by physician at health checkup.
To increase the effect of brief intervention for smoking cessation at health checkup, it is necessary to increase accessibility smoking cessation treatment by increasing the number of registered medical facilities that provide reimbursed treatment by public health insurance. We also consider that it is necessary to enlighten smokers on the necessity of smoking cessation treatment including the usefulness of medication.
It is also necessary to perform pulmonary function tests routinely as one of health checkup items for the diagnosis of COPD. In addition, it is important to provide smoking cessation intervention even for a short time at health checkup for prevention of COPD.
