Smoking cessation encouragement by community pharmacists.

Background: Pharmaceutical care interventions have shown to improve health outcomes in specific patient populations. However, which smokers could be reached by community pharmacists in Belgium is unknown. Moreover, the impact of behavioural interventions for smoking cessation (such as brief motivational interviewing) on short term health outcomes remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to describe the population reached and potential impact on health outcomes among persons who received a brief motivational interview by their community pharmacist. Methods: Demographics of approached smokers in Flemish community pharmacies during the months May-June 2021, and objectifiable outcomes of a brief motivational interview were retrieved from the pharmacy database. Smoking cessation aids use as well as the impact on cough, inhaler or exacerbation medication use was evaluated 90 and 180 days after the encouragement. Data were analysed using the Mann-Whitney U test, ꭕ² test and binary logistic regression analysis. Results: Community pharmacists provided a brief motivational interview to a broad population of smokers of both sexes, including young persons and persons without chronic medication use. Two out of three smokers were motivated to quit (67.7%) and a third of the included population (33.0%) purchased a smoking cessation aid on the index date (36.7% after 90 and 39.3% after 180 days). Smokers motivated to quit who purchased a smoking cessation aid on the index date had a significantly lower use of cough (OR = 0.37; p = 0.032) and inhaler medication (OR = 0.37; p = 0.009) after 90 days than those not motivated to quit. Effects were less pronounced after 180 days but still statistically significant for lower inhaler use (OR = 0.46; p = 0.031). Conclusions: By implementing a brief pharmaceutical counselling in Belgian community pharmacies, a broad range of smokers can be reached and triggered to start smoking cessation aids with suggestive short-term health benefits. Acknowledgements The authors want to thank the Flemish ...