The effectivenesss of medical therapy for smoking cessation: The experience of health promotion program at Cheng Hsin General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Background. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the smoking cessation at the Family Medicine Outpatient Department (OPD) of a regional hospital in the northern Taiwan
Methods. A nationwide tobacco control practice was conducted in 2002 by Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health Taiwan. Cheng-Hsin General Hospital is one of the smoking cessation units in this health promotion program. All the participants were visited at outpatient department (OPD) and further evaluated by a structured questionnaire included personal information, disease history, dependence on nicotine, and outcome evaluation. To evaluate the effect of cessation program, routine phone interviews in third, sixth, and twelve month were performed. The smokers had smoking behavior in last seven days by phone interview were defined as smoking cessation failure.
Results. There were four hundred and twenty-seven subjects visited OPD for smoking cessation during 2002-2007 at Cheng-Hsin General Hospital. Three hundred and twenty-six subjects completed the three telephone interviews with 76.3% follow-up rate. The three-month, six-month, and twelve-month continuous success rate of smoking cessation were 34.0%, 24.5%, 20.9%, respectively. From the multiple logistic regression, Factors related to smokers’ continuous abstinence rate of the third month included number of cigarettes smoked per day(OR=0.29, 95% CI: 0.14-0.62), degree of nicotine dependence (OR=0.52, 95%CI: 0.31-0.87), and side effects (OR=3.02, 95%CI: 1.61-5.64); of the sixth month included number of cigarettes smoked per day (OR=0.44, 95%CI: 0.20-0.98), degree of nicotine dependence (OR=0.45, 95%CI: 0.26-0.79), and side effects (OR=3.05, 95%CI: 1.57-5.92); of the one year included degree of nicotine dependence (OR=0.50, 95%CI: 0.28-0.90), and side effects (OR=3.19, 95%CI: 1.60-6.40).
Conclusions. Although some improvements and effects of smoking cessation showed in the present study, follow-up study should be conducted to explore the long term effects of the health promotion program.