After years of continuous decline, smoking is stagnating in France. While 57% of smokers recognize their desire to quit. And for many of them, without finding the means to achieve it.
In Montpellier, Barbara Rampillon, tobacco specialist at the Clémentville clinic, offers an innovative perspective on cigarette addiction. “We are trying to integrate tools to change the path of thought towards emergency cigarettes,” she explains. Co-founder of the association
Apie (Support, share, innovate together), she created, with Florian Marquet (animation director of Manoir du crime, an association specializing in role-playing games), a game to help smokers.
A game designed by and with patients
“Stop smoking was designed with and by patients. We work in conceptualization, not in ritualization, with a game system, she emphasizes. The patient is told that the goal is to be calm, to be in better health, to be with your family. The goal is not to quit smoking. That is a means. We try to make the patients feel guilty. “
In this game, the objective is to use the cigarette as the last emergency card, when you can’t help it. Without guilt. “We give them new tools before they go for emergency cigarettes. The more you build your experience of it, the more you will go on the emergency cigarette, the more experience cards you will have. The more experience you have, the more you will have a gold experience card. The goal is to build as many cards as possible so that the emergency cigarette card is of no interest to the smoker. “
“I understood that it was not a race against time”
“I must not feel guilty if I smoke a cigarette. Psychologically, I’m not going to take it the same, “listens to Alain. A smoker for over thirty-five years, he has struggled for several months to stop toasting his last three daily cigarettes, which he considers today as “a reward.” I understood that it was not a race against time. We can accept that it may take time. “
The game developed by Barbara Rampillon and the Apie is in the testing phase with professionals. It will be finalized in November, in the middle of the tobacco-free month. “We mix educational mechanics and game mechanics, in order to create a support tool for practitioners,” continues the trainer, who works daily with a small team of health professionals, such as psychologist Laurence Cottet. “Barbara is a first-line intervention,” she continues. When she feels in her care that there is something stuck at the psychological level, she discusses with the patient and they then both agree if there is a need to contact me ” .
Barbara Rampillon claims a success rate of 46%. Thanks in particular to this playful approach: “This is not a miracle cure. We are not going to quit smoking because we are using this game. But it is an additional tool. “