Background: Smoking cessation is important to prevent recurrence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), but even in patients with ACS, smoking is hard to quit.

Objectives: This study hypothesized that aversive advice during the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedure works effectively to promote smoking cessation in patients with ACS.

Methods: This study was conducted as a prospective, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial. A total of 66 patients were randomly assigned to an aversive advice group or a control group and instructed to visit the outpatient clinic 1, 4, and 24 weeks after discharge. In the aversive advice group, a physician who did not participate in the patient follow-up said the following 3 sentences to the patients during the PCI procedure: “Smoking caused your chest pain”; “If you do not stop smoking right now, this pain will come again”; and “The next time you feel this pain you will probably die.” All patients received usual advice on the importance of quitting smoking.

Results: At 24 weeks after discharge, the smoking cessation rate was higher in the aversive advice group than in the control group. In a multivariable logistic regression analysis, after adjustment for age, smoking quantity, alcohol consumption, and disease severity, the result was maintained (odds ratio = 4.47, 95% confidence interval: 1.50 to 13.34).

Conclusions: Aversive advice during a PCI procedure is effective at smoking cessation in patients with ACS. A physician’s attention and involvement during the PCI procedure improves the rate of smoking cessation in patients with ACS.

Highlights

• Smoking cessation is important to prevent recurrence of ACS.
• We hypothesized that aversive advice will promote smoking cessation in ACS patients.
• Aversive advice during a PCI is effective at smoking cessation in ACS patients.