The Importance of Smoking Cessation Among the Elderly - Research Paper Example

? Analysis of a Research Study Article The research article ‘ “I did not intend to stop. I just could not stand cigarettes anymore.” A qualitative interview study of smoking cessation among the elderly’ by Astri Medbo, Hasse Melbye and Carl Edvark Rudebeck is a study of interviews of elderly persons regarding the stopping of smoking. The methodology of the survey included the researchers interviewing 18 elderly people who were smokers and those who had been smokers previously. The persons’ reactions and decisions to continue smoking or stop smoking were recorded. They were then analyzed and presented along with a narrative. Actually the objective of the researchers was to find methods on how to implement a successful conversation on the part of the General Practitioners to urge patients to quit smoking. Descriptive Vividness The obvious thing which strikes the reader after reading the research paper is it vividness in description. The article starts with an abstract with gives a brief synopsis of the background, the methods, the results and the conclusion of the survey. The authors then proceed to describe each of these points in detail. The Background of the paper narrates the previous records of such surveys in cigarette smoking, the purpose of this survey, the sample population selected for the research and in general the theories deduced from previous surveys on cigarette smoking. The paper gives a brief overview of the method used (QCA) for deducing the results and goes on to describe the participants of the survey. This section enumerates how the interviewees were chosen from among the population and how ethical and legal permission was obtained for the survey. The paper then describes the interview process which was conducted in the participants’ home by the General Practitioner. Then the section on Data Analysis enumerates how the audio-taped data was deciphered and the results obtained from it using the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method. The results are first presented in a tabular form. Then the descriptive part analyses the different stages in a smoker’s life, from beginning smoking to quitting the habit. This is the lengthiest part of the paper and describes in detail the reactions of the smokers at the different junctures of his life. The paper follows up the results a vivid discussion on the empirical results. This contains the analytical portion of the paper. The research ends with the Concluding part which presents the practical results of the survey in a nutshell. The role of the spouses and close associates in the life of a smoker is found to be very significant and can influence him to stop smoking. Also General Practitioners can become successful in encouraging their smoking patients to quit smoking, if they cite case studies from previous history. Therefore, the paper describes at length the entire research process. Methodological Congruence Tromso is a city on Northern Norway which housed 61,000 residents in 2001. The population of Tromso, which was above the age of sixty, was surveyed and it was discovered that 82% of the men and 53% of the women had been daily smokers at one point of time. Out of this, 23% of both the men and women still used to smoke. Thus, a large number of the population had stopped smoking. When the researchers wanted to discover methods to encourage people to stop smoking, the population of Tromso proved to be very suitable. Thus, it can be inferred that the sample population selected for the survey interview had the characteristics of being a good sample population. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p2) The surveyors designed as Interview Guide which outlined the general guidelines of the Interview Process. It did not follow a very strict format; instead the guidelines of the process were semi-structured. There are both advantages we well as disadvantages of such a format. There are some people who are comfortable answering a lenient form of interview, which is not based on a strict question format. Such people offer their honest opinions and are not hesitant in presenting the actual facts while answering such an interview. However, there are other people in the population who prefer being asked specific questions about a certain issue. There are many surveys which are carried out asking to-the-point questions to the interviewee and a majority of the population is accustomed to this kind of interviews. For them, answering such a semi-structured interview might prove to be deterring to their patience and thus the answers offered in the process might not reflect the actual truth. Therefore, with such an interview schedule, the researchers cannot be absolutely sure about the validity of the answers of all the interviewees. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p2) Analytical and Interpretative Connectedness In the literature about smoking there have been surveys about the smoking characteristics of the teenage population, young adults and pregnant women. However, there were very few surveys which recorded the smoking habits of the elderly population. In this respect, the survey proved to be unique. However, the same issue presented a disadvantage. The objective of the survey was to find out counseling methods for the General Practitioners to advise their patients to stop smoking and the researchers interviewed a group of elderly people for the purpose. This was likely to introduce a bias in the study. If the researchers wanted to discover ways to urge people to quit smoking, the young population needed to be counseled in this regard instead of advising only elderly people. The counselors ideally need to intervene at an early age of a smoker’s life. For this, the reactions of the young population also needed to be recorded in the survey. The current research has not included the youth population and this is a disadvantage of the survey. The survey interviewed 18 elderly persons and recorded their narratives in an audio recorded. After that, the narratives were deciphered and the method of Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) was applied to them. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p2; Evans, Gilpin, Pierce, Burns, Borland, Johnson, Bal 1992) The “first author” who was a seasoned General Physician carried out the interview at the home of the participant following the instructions of the Interview Guide. The sessions usually lasted for twenty to forty minutes during which the conversation responses of the participants were taped by an audio. There are both pros and cons to this method of questioning. Persons who are fluent in conversation would find this method of giving an interview quite comfortable. They would instantly build up a relation with the interviewer and proceed to answer his queries. However, there are some people who feel more comfortable in answering questions in writing rather than giving verbal answers. There are many surveys and researches which are carried out with the help of written questionnaires where the interviewees are required to write answers to typed questions. For people accustomed to such an interview process, a verbal taped interview might have proved to be unnerving and the answer given in this case may not reflect true facts. Thus, the method of a taped interview does not guarantee that the answers would be true and valid. That is the relationship between theory, practice and research does not always follow a straight path in practical life. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p2; Chapman & MacKenzie 2010) After the interview process was over, the taped conversations were translated into writing by the “first author” with the help of one of his colleagues. In such a process of translating a verbal response into a written form, provisions have to be allowed for the incidence of human errors. It is very difficult to convert the audio-taped conversations of such a semi-structured interview into specific responses that would generate statistical data. There always remain margins for error. After each interview process, apart from the conversations being audio-taped, the first author noted down the main points of the interview. Then the first, second and the third author read through this summary and listened to the taped conversations several times to decipher the essence of the individual interviews. Then the researchers posed the three questions of Frank to each of the interviews: What the interview story did for the researcher, what the interview contributed towards the researcher and what the story did for the interviewee. The surveyors wrote short summaries as answers to these questions and tried to distinguish between the different types of incidents related to smoking. They did this by assigning headers or preliminary titles to each of the narratives. However, the results obtained from such a classification were very general and could not be categorized into inferences which had some meaning. At this point of time, the researchers applied the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method to the results of the interviews. In all, the method of deducing the results from the taped interview conversations proved to be quite lengthy and complicated. It involved a considerable amount of effort on the part of the researchers to tabulate results from such interviews. If an easier process of recording the interviews and inducing results from it, can be implemented then such surveys can be carried out with more regularity in future. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p3) Philosophical and Theoretical Connectedness As such, in the smoking literature there is no theory regarding the beginning or quitting of the smoking habit. There have been many surveys conducted in this regard and the results have been analyzed to form different theories. This is true of this research too. From the results of the study, it has been deduced that spouses and other close associates of the smokers can play a significant part in helping the latter to stop smoking. The Counseling of the General Practitioners are also likely to have a better influence on their smoking patients, if they cite case studies of persons who have been successful in quitting smoking. However, these theories can be said to be specific to the sample population taken for this survey only. It is doubtful, how much they will be applicable to the larger population. The researchers approached the Regional Committee for Medical Health and Research Ethics in northern Norway, and the Committee extended their ethical approval for conducting the study. The Norwegian Social Sciences Data Service also provided a license to the research. The surveyors also obtained written consents from the participants of the interview. However, they were not given any remuneration for their opinions. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p2) Heuristic Relevance The results of the survey suggest that while counseling a person to quit smoking, it is advisable for General Physicians to support his viewpoint by real life examples. The smoker himself can be allowed to suggest possible alternatives to smoking which he can pursue. The influence of close friends and relatives in urging people to stop smoking has also found to be quite significant. Persons have been found to quit smoking on requests from their respective spouses. The research suggests General Physicians to narrate the examples gathered in the survey to persons who were genuinely making an effort to stop smoking. This would help to open up a constructive dialogue between the doctor and the patient and therefore influence the latter to give up smoking on a permanent basis. (Medbo, Melbye & Rudebeck 2011 p10) References 1. Medbo A, Melbye H, Rudebeck C E (2011) “I did not intend to stop. I just could not stand cigarettes any more.” A qualitative interview of study of smoking cessation among the elderly retrieved on September 5, 2011 from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2296/12/42 2. Evans J.N, Gilpin E, Pierce J.P, Burns D.M, Borland R, Johnson M, Bal D (1992) Occasional smoking among adults : evidence from the California Tobacco Survey Tobacco Control 1992 (1) 169-175 retrieved on September 5, 2011 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1758970/pdf/v001p00169.pdf 3. Chapman S & MacKenzie R (2010) The Global Research Neglect of Unassisted Smoking Cessation: Causes and Consequences PLoS Med 7(2) retrieved on September 5, 2011 from http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000216 Read More