Dear Editor,

In 2005, Sweden ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Article 14 highlights the importance of tobacco cessation. In 2005, a national standard for certification of tobacco cessation practitioners was adopted in Sweden and six years later a similar standard, the Gold Standard Program (GSP) was introduced. In 2018 there were 18 approved education centers in Sweden and one GSP-training program.

Results from Swedish and Danish cessation counselors have shown optimistic results regarding tobacco quit rates^1,2. Others have identified barriers for tobacco cessation in various health-care personnel, including a shortage of tobacco cessation experts to refer the patient to³, as well as perceived lack of time for counseling⁴ and training in tobacco cessation⁵. To our knowledge, no previous study has explored the characteristics of Swedish tobacco cessation counselors.

An electronic survey was distributed in April 2018 to those who had been certified from 2006 to April 2018 (n=902). The survey involved multiple-choice questions regarding sex, education, current employment, working conditions, and time spent on smoking cessation. The survey was anonymous, and did not involve any patients or sensitive material.

There were 586 (65%) responders. As shown in Table 1, the overwhelming majority (93.9%) were women. The dominating occupation was nurse/midwife and 76% stated being active in tobacco cessation. The majority of respondents (75.5%) reported that they spent 0.5–2 hours per week on tobacco cessation and considered the overall possibilities to conduct tobacco cessation as ‘moderate’. Most responders saw 0–2 new patients per month in predominantly individual sessions.

The replies to questions dealing with various aspects of support in the work place ranged from moderate to very good for different variables. Although little time was spent on tobacco cessation, the possibilities to spend time on tobacco cessation was stated as moderate by 39% of the respondents; thus, there seems to be no major hindering factor for conducting tobacco cessation, as opposed to what has been reported⁴.

In contrast to what has been reported from the tobacco cessation database in Denmark, where most tobacco cessation was conducted in a group setting² according to the GSP program, our respondents reported mostly individual cessation sessions. When stratifying by type of cessation education, all those with solely GSP education (n=36) reported individual cessation sessions, even though group-based interventions are more cost-effective than individual consultations⁶. A reason for the dominance of individual cessation sessions could be a low inflow of patients from primary care, possibly due to the deprioritizing of smoking-related diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder⁷.

Our results show that most consultations with Swedish cessation counselors are on an individual basis. We also found that little time is spent on tobacco cessation, despite that more than 50% consider their ‘overall possibilities to conduct tobacco cessation’ as moderate. Further studies are warranted to examine the reasons behind the short time spent on tobacco cessation and how more patients in need could benefit from this treatment.