Development of Customized Smoking Cessation Program on the Internet

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUNG: In spite of the harmfulness of smoking, the smoking rate of adult males is high in Korea and those of adolescents and women have risen recently. Although the number of smoking-cessation clinic has risen year by year in Korea, it is not easy for a smoker to attend because of time and economic constraints. This project was performed to allow easy access to on-line smoking counselling center on the internet. METHODS: Smoking cessation homepage (www.xsmoke. net) containing smoking counselling and e-mailing services was developed by Namo web editor, Photoshop 7.0, and MySQL database program. RESULTS:This program was divided into two major categories: part one was a library of various kind of information on smoking such as articles, lecture notes, pictures, slides, mp3 and motion files. The other part was an autonomous smoking cessation prescription program. This program analyzed smokers' smoking pattern (using WHY test), nicotine addiction level (using Fagerstrom score), stress level (using BEPSI test), and smokers' confidence level. After the input of smoker's history by the applicant, the program showed its smoking cessation prescription automatically and required to give and decide on a quitting day. The next step was automatic e-mailing service containing information on smoking cessation methods. CONCLUSION: Internet smoking cessation center that provides a library of smoking cessation materials, automatic prescription and e-mailing program has been developed for Korean smokers.