Abstract
Many adult African Americans suffer from lung cancer and cardiac diseases as a result of tobacco smoking. The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the effective intervention to contribute to smoking cessation among the adult African Americans in the United States.
The effectiveness of the CBT for smoking cessation is stated with references to the observed high rates of overcoming tobacco dependence among different groups of the American population, including the African Americans. The therapy’s coping strategies, the focus on inner motivation, strategies to change behaviors, and on the racial and ethnic group’s differences are effective to contribute to the African Americans’ high rates in relation to the successful smoking cessation.
Effectiveness of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Smoking Cessation
Tobacco smoking is one of the most challenging health problems within the American society with the focus on the spread of smoking among the African American population. As a result, many adult African Americans suffer from lung cancer and cardiac diseases caused by tobacco smoking.
The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) remains to be the standard intervention and the most actively used approach in relation to smoking cessation in the United States. Due to the fact of the intervention’s popularity, researchers actively discuss the question of the therapy’s effectiveness for different categories of the US population, including the African Americans.
Thus, the research question which is important to be answered in the paper with references to the current investigations on the topic can be formulated the following way: How effective is the CBT as the actively used intervention for smoking cessation with the focus on the African American adults? It is important to answer the question about the effectiveness of the CBT for smoking cessation with references to the racial and ethnic differences influencing the effectiveness of the CBT and to the comparison of the CBT with the other therapies.
The CBT is the effective intervention to influence the smoking cessation among the American population because of changing the persons’ attitudes to smoking as a habit, but few researches are conducted to investigate the effects on the African Americans. Thus, Webb and the group of researchers focused on analyzing the effectiveness of the CBT in the group of African Americans (Webb, Ybarra, Baker, Reis, & Carey, 2010, p. 25).
The researchers developed the trial for 154 participants where 65% are the representatives of the female population. The results were assessed after the first seven days of the therapy, after six sessions of counseling, after eight weeks of the therapy, and after three and six months after the whole course (Webb et al., 2010).
The researchers have found that 31% of the adult African Americans demonstrate the absence of tobacco dependence in six months after the therapy. To demonstrate the achievement of the hypothesized positive effects, Webb and colleagues compared the results with the outcomes of the general treatment strategies which are 14% (Webb et al., 2010, p. 31).
Following the researchers’ results, it is possible to state that the CBT is the effective intervention to change the African Americans’ attitude to smoking and to contribute to the successful smoking cessation because of the observed high percentage in relation to the therapy positive results.
The fact of observing rather high rates related to the effectiveness of the CBT for smoking cessation is also supported with references to the results among such groups of population as the cancer patients. To understand the effectiveness of the CBT as the strategy to quit smoking, it is necessary to refer to the variety of researches on the issue.
Thus, according to Schnoll, Rothman, and Wielt, the CBT is the appropriate therapy to cope with smoking behaviors because of influencing the patients’ motivation (Schnoll, Rothman, & Wielt, 2005, p. 2). The researchers assumed that the CBT can promote the smoking cessation among cancer patients effectively and focused on the study of the randomized sample including 109 participants with the help of the Cognitive-Social Health Information-Processing model (Schnoll, Rothman, & Wielt, 2005).
It is found that no significant differences can be observed among the therapeutic approaches, but the rate of 43.2% successful smoking cessation is fixed in three months after the use of the CBT (Schnoll, Rothman, & Wielt, 2005, p. 5).
These results can be compared with the results of Webb and colleagues’ research findings in 31% successful smoking cessation (Webb et al., 2010, p. 31). From this perspective, the CBT is obviously the effective intervention to contribute to smoking cessation among different types of the population because the high results are fixed with references to the conducted researches in the field.
It is also important to pay attention to the fact that the ability of the person to quit smoking is often associated not only with the strategy used but also with the definite racial and ethnic factors. The high rates of the spread of lung cancer and cardiac diseases among the African Americans are closely associated with their specific smoking behaviors and low rates of smoking cessation (Webb et al., 2010).
Thus, Trinidad and the group of researchers supported the focus on differences in smoking cessation regarding the racial or ethnic factors with the proper analysis of the national survey’s data on the issue (Trinidad, Perez-Stable, White, Emery, & Messer, 2011, p. 700). The researchers examined the 2003 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, and analyzed the statistical data with the help of TUS-CPS survey resources (Trinidad et al., 2011).
Trinidad and the researchers compared the results on different racial and ethnic groups, distinguishing between the groups’ smoking behaviours and successful experiences in smoking cessation. According to the investigation’s findings, only 50% of African Americans can successfully quit smoking, and these high rates are caused by their specific smoking behaviours.
Furthermore, African Americans are ready to rely on the help of therapists to quit smoking (Trinidad et al., 2011, p. 704). From this point, such therapies as the CBT and many others can be discussed as rather effective to contribute to smoking cessation among the adult African Americans because of regulating their certain behaviours and attitudes to smoking which are fixed and examined by different groups of researchers (Trinidad et al., 2011; Webb et al., 2010).
Stimulating the patients’ inner motivation with the help of coping strategies, therapists demonstrate the paths for the further development of the positive habit as opposed to the smoking behaviour (Schnoll, Rothman, & Wielt, 2005).
The comparison of the CBT with such approaches as the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) supports the fact that the CBT is still one of the most practicable and effective interventions used to help persons in coping with tobacco smoking. According to Hernandez-Lopez and the group of researchers’ hypothesis, the new ACT is more effective in smoking cessation than the traditional CBT (Hernandez-Lopez, Luciano, Bricker, Roales-Nieto, & Montesinos, 2009, p. 724).
To support their idea, the researchers developed the quasi-experimental design with references to the weekly sessions for adult smokers who tried to quit smoking with the help of the ACT and with the help of the CBT. 43 participants were treated with the help of the ACT, and 38 participants were treated with the focus on the CBT (Hernandez-Lopez et al., 2009, p. 726). To conclude about the study’s findings, the researchers compared the received results in relation to effectiveness of the ACT and CBT.
The researchers concluded that differences in the effectiveness of the ACT and CBT are not significant to state about the extreme effectiveness of this or that intervention in comparison with another one (Hernandez-Lopez et al., 2009, p. 727).
Both strategies are rather feasible and appropriate to be used for smoking cessation. Thus, the proposed hypothesis was supported only partially, and it is possible to speak about the relevance of the CBT to help persons in quitting tobacco smoking along with the newly proposed interventions such as the ACT.
The CBT is based on the direct work with the persons’ feelings and emotions, referring to the different types of coping strategies. The effectiveness of these strategies is supported with the fact that the CBT is discussed as the standard intervention in psychotherapy to help patients in smoking cessation.
However, the use of such approaches as the ACT can provoke the discussion of the CBT inappropriateness in relation to the contemporary tendencies. Nevertheless, according to the results of Hernandez-Lopez and the group of the researchers’ study, the effectiveness of CBT for smoking cessation among the adult population is the stated fact that is why it can be actively used to treat the African American population as the alternative to many other modern interventions (Hernandez-Lopez et al., 2009; Webb et al., 2010).
Thus, it is possible to state that the CBT is the highly effective intervention to be used to promote the smoking cessation among the adult African Americans.
The reasons for the statement are in the fact that the therapy’s coping strategies can contribute to the work with the African Americans as the specific racial and ethnic group the members of which are characterized by the high dependence on smoking habits, but low rates in successful smoking cessation.
The CBT can improve the persons’ attitudes and behaviors in relation to smoking basing on their inner motivation as it is stated with references to the researches conducted on the topic.
Furthermore, the CBT can be discussed as the effective intervention used within different groups of the American population without references to the differences in race or physical and emotional state. The current research literature on the topic can be discussed as supportive to state that the traditional CBT is more effective today in comparison with the other strategies and methods such as the ACT or general treatment strategies.
The CBT depends on using the persons’ inner motivation resources and emotions related to smoking in order to help in quitting the smoking habit. From this point, the therapy is also helpful to be used in working with the adult African Americans in order to overcome the high rates of unsuccessful smoking cessation and spread of such diseases as lung cancer and hypertension.
References
Hernandez-Lopez, M., Luciano, M., Bricker, J., Roales-Nieto, J., & Montesinos, F. (2009). Acceptance and commitment therapy for smoking cessation: A preliminary study of its effectiveness in comparison with cognitive behavioral therapy. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 23(4), 723-730.
Schnoll, R., Rothman, R., & Wielt, D. (2005). A randomized pilot study of cognitive-behavioral therapy versus basic health education for smoking cessation among cancer patients. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 30(1), 1-11.
Trinidad, D., Perez-Stable, E., White, M., Emery, S., & Messer, K. (2011). A nationwide analysis of US racial/ethnic disparities in smoking behaviors, smoking cessation, and cessation-related factors. American Journal of Public Health, 101(4), 699–706.
Webb, M., Ybarra, D., Baker, E., Reis, I., & Carey, M. (2010). Cognitive-behavioral therapy to promote smoking cessation among African American smokers: A randomized clinical trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(1), 24-33.