Factors associated with success of smoking cessation at smoking-cessation clinic

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: In spite of harmfulness of smoking, the rate of adult man's smoking is high in Korea and that of young people and women has risen recently. Although the number of hospitals operating smoking-cessation clinic has risen year by year, there is little research on smoking cessation. In this study, we tried to find the factors associated with successful smoking cessation and have attempted to contribute to developing effective smoking cessation strategy and help to continue cessation state. METHOD: Three hundred smokers, who had visited the Dankook Univ. Hospital from May 1999 to December 1999, were consulted. After doing a survey with a basic questionnaire and smoking cessation consultation, we asked them to revisit on the date of appointment with continued use of nicotine patch as much possible. Six months later, we selected 272 people and analyzed the factors of difference between the two groups ; one is the successful group and the other is the failure group. RESULT: The success group included 77 people (28.3%), and the failure group 195 people (71.7%). In view of demographic profiles such as age, sex, marital status, education, and job, there was no significant difference between the two groups. In view of smoking pattern and factors that can influence them such as age of starting to smoke, duration of smoking, motive of smoking, reason of failure to stop smoking, reason of trying to stop smoking, the presence of smoking family number, confidence in smoking cessation, dependence on nicotine and the number of alcohol drinking, there was no significant difference between the two groups. In the results of univariate analysis, daily mean smoking amount, the presence of smoking-associated disease, expiratory CO level at initial visit to hospital, period of using nicotine patch and total times of visiting clinic were significant difference between the two groups. Therefore, the total number of visits to the clinic was the only significant factor according to multivariate analysis. CONCLUSION: The results of multivariate analysis has shown that the factor that is most associated with success of smoking cessation is the total number of visits to smoking-cessation clinic. This means that the more people who smoke consult with doctor and the longer the period of utilizing the smoking-cessation clinic is, the more successful they in smoking cessation.