Workshop on the treatment of tobacco dependency

1. Introduction

This two day workshop will provide information and training on the prevention of harm from active and passive smoking with the emphasis on the treatment of tobacco dependency. It is aimed at nursing, dental, and medical professionals, particularly from Asia and Pacific Rim Countries. The workshop is designed as a package with the conference and will follow immediately on from it. The third day of the conference is designed to interface with the workshop and will cover the background and theoretical aspects of the treatment of tobacco dependency. It will feature international speakers as well as those with experience of smoking cessation activities in the local region.

The two days of the workshop will focus on developing the skills of participants in the treatment of tobacco dependency.

2. Objectives

1. By the end of this workshop participants should be able to:
2. use state-of-the-art approaches to smoking cessation interventions
3. develop clinical management protocols of clients with tobacco dependency, assess medications, treatment variations, and resolving tobacco-use related problems in medical and well populations
4. implement training for smoking cessation counselors/ therapists/trainers in their home country
5. examine opportunities for making system changes to maximize health care providers' utilization of tobacco cessation services
6. discuss clinical practice and system change issues that warrant further research

3. Workshop faculty

Workshop Director : Sophia Chan, Head, Department of Nursing Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (SC)

Faculty:

• Richard Fielding, Head, Behavioral Sciences Unit, Department of Community Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (RF)
• A J Hedley, Chair Professor, Department of Community Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (AJH)
• Taru Kinnunen, Assistant Professor, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, USA (TK)
• T H Lam, Head, Department of Community Medicine, The University of Hong Kong (THL)
• Hayden McRobbie, Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland (HM)
• Jennifer Percival, Tobacco Education Project Manager, The Royal College of Nursing, United Kingdom (JP)
• Nancy Rigotti, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School, United States of America (NR)

4. Timetable

Day 1 – 27 November 2006 (Monday)

Why do people smoke?

Individual and social factors

• The neuropharmacology of nicotine as a model of addiction
• Addiction or habituation? Explanations and causes of complex behaviour

Tobacco and oral health

9.45-10.30

• This session explores the impacts of tobacco on oral health

Break

10.45-11.00

Smokers' Tales: Why am I a smoker? How I quit?
In this session we hear from smokers who faced different barriers to quitting; to identify similarities and differences to increase awareness of smoking patterns and barriers to cessation, and generic issues for assessment will be outlined.

Pharmacologic options to treat nicotine dependence

This session will use a case of women smoker with multiple co-morbidities to illustrate different options of pharmacotherapy in treating nicotine dependence and address why it is hard to quit based on the quitters' stories.

Countering tobacco dependence

Identifying and assessing dependence

• Assessing patients: know your smokers
• Participants will have the opportunity to practice assessing smokers, profiling and generate assessment approaches with smokers
• Participants are all expected to take part in this session

• This exercise will allocate participants into four groups. Each group will work on developing and enhancing assessment skills for assessing dependence behaviour within the particular setting and dependence scenario identified.
• Exercise:
  Assessment in medical/nursing practice
  Group A/B/C/D

Q & A, homework setting and wrap up for Day 1

“I’ve never thought of quitting.”How to approach the issue of quitting in the unprepared smoker

Motivational interviewing

(c) Initiating quitting in the willing smoker

Treatment planning and goal setting for smokers who are ready to quit

Working with special populations

This exercise will allocate participants into four groups. Each group will discuss smoking cessation in a particular special population as follows:

Group A: Working with teens and young people: challenging “cool”

Group B: Women, weight and pregnancy: tackling women's concerns

Group C: Patients with established chronic disease: Is it still worth quitting

Setting further learning objectives and continuing tobacco control education

Special population groups reconvene to identify further skills development goals for workshop attendees

Reconvene, Q & A, wrap up.

5. Venue

Workshop address:
EA – Exhibition Area, William M W Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Break out rooms:
SR1/SR2/SR3/SR4/SR6 – Seminar Room 1/2/3/4/6, Ground Floor/Lower Ground Floor, Laboratory Block, Faculty of Medicine Building
ML – Multimedia Lab, Room 314, 3/F, William M W Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building
SCA – Student Common Area, 3/F, William M W Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building

6. For more information
If you have any queries or need further information, please contact Dr. Sophia Chan, nssophia@hkucc.hku.hk or Tel: 28192622.