Smoking cessation course in Málaga

A smoking cessation course is being run by the AECC (Spanish Association Against Cancer) in Málaga as a free service, subsidised by Málaga City Council. The AECC has in-person psychological-pharmacological support and therapy offered at their headquarters and boasts a success rate is 66%.

Thanks to the subsidy from Málaga City Council, the AECC has launched their courses which are free of charge for all those who want to quit smoking. Smoking is a chronic addictive disease and one of the main problems of public health worldwide due to its high mortality rate. It is known that the tobacco is the main risk factor since it is directly related to 16 types of cancer.

Francisco Cantos (Councilor for Social Rights of the Malaga City Council), Eva Fernández (Mission Coordinator from the AECC in Malaga) and Ana Marín (psychologist from the AECC) announced ther course this week. 

The program of smoking cessation that the City Council and AECC make available to all people from Malaga who want to stop smoking has had a first pilot group that has started in the month of June and now the registration period opens for those people who want to sign up for the therapies that are going to be launched starting in September.

The Councilor for Social Rights, Francisco Cantos, stressed “the importance of prevention and promoting initiatives like this to continue moving forward towards a healthier population with a higher quality of life.” Cantos explained that this course forms part of a collaboration between Málaga City Council and other third party organisations to help improve the quality of life for residents. This project has received €2711 to subsiudise the event. 

For her part, the Mission coordinator of the AECC in Málaga, Eva Fernández, thanked the City Council for its collaboration on such an issue, as important as the fight against smoking is. “In the Spanish Association Against Cancer we have a clear objective that we want to achieve in the year 2030, to achieve a average survival rate in the disease of 70%. Collaborations like that of Malaga City Council demonstrate special sensitivity to such a problem. serious as smoking, since 1 in 3 cases of cancer is caused by smoking and/or tobacco consumption.”

In Malaga, about 310,000 people smoke daily and of them, 30,000 are in the age between 15 and 25 years. The smoking cessation program offered by the AECC is a combined program, that is made up of a pharmacological treatment and also a psychological treatment to quit smoking The course is based on a multidisciplinary and pioneering study in Spain, using pharmacological tools of proven effectiveness and therapy cognitive-behavioral and acceptance and commitment. After a pilot test in the month of June in Malaga and Marbella, the registration period is now open for the courses that They will start in September.

The smoking cessation course is free

The courses are free and are aimed at the general population with an addiction to tobacco and its derivatives, including electronic cigarettes or Vaper. The program is made up of a total of 16 sessions, ten of them in person and the remainder through a telephone follow-up intervention.

According to Ana Marín, a psychologist from the AECC who is going to lead the courses, they “take into account the level of addiction and the phase in which the smoker sits, the level of motivation or phase of addiction and anxiety of each beneficiary, in addition to the type of pharmacological treatment prescribed to quit smoking, offering permanent contact with health professionals and the AECC association”.

Tobacco is a significant cause of preventable death in Spain. 85% of lung cancer cases, one of those with the highest mortality, is directly related to smoking. It is proven that tobacco is a drug with greater addictive power than other illegal substances such as heroin or cocaine, since the effect of nicotine reaches the brain in less than 7 seconds. And it is also known that being able to stop your addiction to tobacco and its derivatives can produce immediate benefits such as 

• After 20 minutes, heart rate and blood pressure drop.
• After 12 hours, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood drops to normal.
• From 2 weeks to three months, circulation improves and lung function increases.
• From 1 to 9 months later, cough and difficulty breathing decrease.
• One year later, the risk of heart attack decreases dramatically.
• Between 5 and 10 years after quitting smoking, the risk of cancer is significantly reduced, in some cases by more than half.

This program, which has a success rate of 66%, can also be developed in those companies and/or entities that want to implement it as another service to their workers and/or users, taught onsite at the company itself and/or entity or in any of the 15 headquarters that the AECC has in the province of Malaga. To request that for your business, you just have to phone (free) on 900 100 036 or send a WhatsApp message to 656-197973.

About the AECC

The AECC has been pivotal in the fight against against cancer for 70 years. It dedicates its efforts to showing the reality of cancer in Spain, detecting areas for improvement and putting those recommendations into practice.  A process of social transformation is underway that allows them to be corrected to obtain an approach to cancer,  comprehensive and multidisciplinary.

Being next to people is in their DNA, so they also provide guides to help others prevent cancer be that with individuals and their families and throughout the entire process of disease, if diagnosed. It also improves the future for all by promoting oncological research.

Through its Scientific Foundation, the Association brings together the social demand for research against cancer, financing quality oncological scientific research programs through public competition.

Today, it is the social and private entities that allocate the most funds to cancer research: 104 million euros in 565 projects, in which more than 1,000 researchers participate. The Association integrates patients, families, volunteers and professionals who work together to prevent, raise awareness, accompany affected people and finance oncological research projects that will allow better diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Structured in 52 Provincial Headquarters, and present in more than 2,000 Spanish locations, it has more than 30,000 volunteers, more than 500,000 members and almost 1,000 professionals. During 2023, the Spanish Association Against Cancer served more than 212,000 people with its professional care services and volunteers

Elle Draper

Elle, along with Alan, is the owner of Spain Buddy and the busy web design business – Spain Web Design by Gandy-Draper.
Born a “Norverner”, she then spent most of her life “Dann Saff” before moving to Spain in 2006. Elle’s loves are Alan, the internet, dogs, good food, and dry white wine – although not necessarily in that order.