A Prospective Study to Assess the Outcome of Motivational Interviewing Among Male Students of Haryana, India: A Strive Towards Smoking Cessation in the Youth

Background The brown plague is a classic example of the modern-day epidemic.Motivational interviewing has been found to increase smokers' readiness to quit, attempts to quit, and reduce smoking levels.Thus, this study, attempts to find out the prevalence of smoking and assess the impact of motivational interviewing on male smoker students (18-30 years). Methodology The study was conducted among the male students of educational institutes in Maharishi Markandeshwar University in Haryana. A cross-sectional study to estimate the prevalence of smoking was carried out. With motivational interviewing of the smokers a prospective cohort study was conducted following the smokers for six months. The probability proportionate to size (PPS) sampling method was applied to recruit 830 participants in the study. A self-designed, semi-structured proforma was used to collect data on smoking behavior, level of dependence, and level of motivation to quit. A modified Fagerstrom questionnaire was used to assess the nicotine dependence level. The motivation to quit smoking was measured by the 10 point scale of Contemplation Ladder, Prochaska, and DiClemente transtheoretical model was used to categorize smokers into stages of readiness to change. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 16.0 (IBM Inc., Armonk, New York). Results The prevalence of smoking was 20.4%. Following motivational interview on the first contact, more than half of the current smokers (66.2%) had high motivation which further increased to 88.13% on the third visit at six months (p < 0.001). Likewise, at first contact, 47% had low nicotine dependence; this increased to 52.5 % at two weeks, and finally, at six months, 53.4% had low nicotine dependence. But this finding was statistically insignificant (p=0.23). It was noted that 21 (16.5%) smokers out of 127 quit smoking. A high degree of motivation, support from family and friends, and a low degree of nicotine dependence were identified as significant independent predictors for smoking cessation. Conclusion A satisfying proportion of smokers could attain a high level of motivation for quitting smoking, but less than one-fourth of the current smokers were able to abstain from smoking at the end of the study period. However, the impact of motivational interviewing was not very promising and calls for multi-pronged approach for discouraging smoking.