Project title: ACCESS - Accessory strategies for teen smoking cessation in Europe

Project start date: 1. 9. 2009
Project completion date: 31. 10. 2010
Budget: EUR 578 978 (VFN share in the total budget: EUR 27 731,44)
Project guarantor (workplace): Tobacco Addiction Center III. Internal Clinic of the General Faculty Hospital in Prague

Project brief:

The principal investigator of the project is the IFT (Institut für Therapieforschung) from Munich. The General Teaching Hospital participates in the project as one of 10 partners from ten EU countries: Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Latvia, Belgium and Austria.

The project focuses primarily on the treatment of tobacco dependence among adolescents, together with everything related to their attitude, motivation, opinions and knowledge about smoking. Part of the project is to raise awareness of the risks of smoking, or its prevention.

The main objective of the project is to motivate adolescents to quit smoking, including information on smoking and treatment, and to transform these experiences into recommendations for preventing and treating tobacco dependence in adolescents.

The project will create a national network of cooperation in this area (doctors, other professionals, media). The project will result in a "good practice" catalog, including how to get smoking adolescents to treat this addiction (they have been exceptionally so far, though around 40% between 15 and 18 years old). In the longer term, the project will contribute to the reduction of smoking among young people and thus to the prevention of this lethal disease in the participating EU countries.

The experience of those who deal with tobacco addiction treatment in individual countries will be used to formulate best practices, along with an overview of published literature. A European conference will be organized to discuss the above. The project should be an administrative and political (= strategic) benefit in individual countries.