• G F Feeney, A McPherson, J P Connor, A McAlister, M R Young, and P Garrahy.
• Alcohol and Drug Assessment Unit, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Gerald_Feeney@health.qld.gov.au
• Intern Med J. 2001 Nov 1; 31 (8): 470475470-5.

BackgroundTobacco cessation after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) substantially improves outcome but how effective individual programmes are needs to be established. To date, few studies have examined this factor.AimsTo assess the outcome of two smoking cessation programmes after AMI.MethodsOne hundred and ninety-eight current smokers admitted to coronary care with an AMI participated in a randomized controlled study comparing two outpatient tobacco interventions, the Stanford Heart Attack Staying Free (SF) programme and a Usual Care (UC) programme.ResultsLog-rank analyses revealed that patients in the SF programme were retained longer (P < 0.001) and had higher cotinine validated abstinence rates (P < 0.001) compared with patients in the UC programme. Twelve months after intervention, 39% of the SF programme compared with 2% of the UC programme demonstrated cotinine validated tobacco cessation, representing a significant reduced relapse rate in the SF programme (chi2, P< 0.001).ConclusionsThe SF smoking cessation programme initiated in hospital can significantly reduce smoking rates at 12 months after myocardial infarction. Although superior to the UC quit programme, Australian outcomes were lower than the American programme originators' published outcomes.

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