Smoking Cessation before Surgery and Effective Airway Management: Patient Education and Empowerment

Abstract Quitting smoking at any time benefits health. Research documents the benefits of temporary smoking cessation to surgical outcomes during, and post-surgical procedures. This phenomenon is central to anesthesia providers because of the potential cardiovascular and pulmonary problems related to the anesthetic management during surgery as a result of smoking. However, it is very challenging to get surgical patients who are smokers to adhere to the temporary preoperative smoking cessation instructions. Using the Transtheoretical model, the goal of this Quality Improvement (QI) project was to increase the number of surgical patients that comply with the 24-48 hours preoperative smoking cessation instructions through impactful education aimed at increasing patients’ awareness on the benefits of temporary smoking cessation to better anesthetic management during surgery. An educational power point presentation was presented to members of the preoperative team. The intervention focused on changing the approach adopted when providing preoperative instructions. A post-intervention chart audit was performed to determine the patient’s compliance to the 24-48 hours preoperative smoking cessation instructions. A descriptive study design was utilized to evaluate the effectiveness of the QI project interventions. Compliance rate with temporary preoperative smoking cessation following the implementation of the QI project increased from about 60% to 75%. Keywords: Smoking cessation; airway management; preoperative instructions; Transtheoretical mode