Acupuncture as a method to quit smoking
Section: TEACHING TO LEARN
Authors
Raquel Marí Grimalt, Mª Luisa Ballesta Fernández
Position
Ex alumnas de la Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia.
Contact email: raquelm42@hotmail.com
Abstract
Smoking is a health problem that affects 31.5% of the Spanish population according to the last study carried out in 2002 by the Spanish Observatory of Drug Dependence, with the region of Murcia scoring a highest of 37.6% of the inhabitants. The method used for the abandonment of the tobacco habit varies a lot, being acupuncture one of these methods. Acupuncture was the technique used in this observational, descriptive and longitudinal study to determine whether acupuncture is an effective method to quit smoking and whether it helps reduce anxiety in those patients who wish to stop smoking.
Our target population are smokers of 10 to 40 cigarettes per day treated from 20-2-05 to 20-4-05 using acupuncture at the “Kang” clinic in Cartagena and at the “Centre of Acupuncture and Natural Therapies” in Murcia, totalling a target population of 70 patients. Our exclusion criteria were patients with some sort of pathology, leaving a sample of 30 people. To do this, three questionnaires were given, one to determine the degree of addiction to nicotine (Fagerstrom test), a second questionnaire to determine the degree of patient motivation to stop smoking (Richmond test) and a third questionnaire to determine the degree of satisfaction after the treatment with acupuncture.
Results indicate that for that purpose, acupuncture is effective in 80% of the study subjects, being people aged 21 to 30 years in whom the treatment was most effective. It surprising to find out that it was specifically this target population where motivation was at its lowest. Of the 24 patients who quit smoking, 13 presented symptoms of anxiety and 2 presented no symptoms whatsoever. The analysis of the data allows us to conclude that acupuncture is effective but it does not eliminate anxiety after treatment.
Our target population are smokers of 10 to 40 cigarettes per day treated from 20-2-05 to 20-4-05 using acupuncture at the “Kang” clinic in Cartagena and at the “Centre of Acupuncture and Natural Therapies” in Murcia, totalling a target population of 70 patients. Our exclusion criteria were patients with some sort of pathology, leaving a sample of 30 people. To do this, three questionnaires were given, one to determine the degree of addiction to nicotine (Fagerstrom test), a second questionnaire to determine the degree of patient motivation to stop smoking (Richmond test) and a third questionnaire to determine the degree of satisfaction after the treatment with acupuncture.
Results indicate that for that purpose, acupuncture is effective in 80% of the study subjects, being people aged 21 to 30 years in whom the treatment was most effective. It surprising to find out that it was specifically this target population where motivation was at its lowest. Of the 24 patients who quit smoking, 13 presented symptoms of anxiety and 2 presented no symptoms whatsoever. The analysis of the data allows us to conclude that acupuncture is effective but it does not eliminate anxiety after treatment.
Keywords:
acupuncture; tobacco; anxiety; efficacymethod
Versión en Español
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