Factors associated with unsuccessful quitters in stop smoking services in Perlis, Malaysia

INTRODUCTION: Tobacco smoking is one of major risk factor of non-communicable disease worldwide. As a prevention strategy, stop smoking services has been advocated at primary care. However, evidence suggests that worldwide there is high rate of unsuccessful quitters. In Malaysia, such evidence has come from small studies or single site study, and evidence on factors associated with failure to quit is scarce. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with unsuccessful quitters among smokers in Stop Smoking Services provided by government health clinics at North Peninsular of Malaysia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a retrospective study record review using data from the Stop Smoking Services registry and patient file card between January 2017 and Jun 2019. Independent variables included in this analysis are sociodemographic data, comorbidity, number appointments attended, duration of smoking, age of starting smoking, previous attempt to quit, fagerstrom score and type of treatment. The outcome of interest, is unsuccessful quitters defined as those who continued to smoke at 6 months after attending the service. A total of 427 sample randomly cases selected from 490 eligible sample was analysed. Logistic regression was used to model factors associated with unsuccessful quitters.

RESULTS: The study suggested that clients who attended 0-3 clinic sessions (AdjOR 6.57; 95% CI: 4.14, 10.43) and being single, unmarried (AdjOR: 2.78; 95%CI: 1.07, 7.18) was associated with increased risk of being unsuccessful quitters among smokers in Northern state of Malaysia CONCLUSION: The number of clinic sessions attended and marital status were factors associated with unsuccessful quitters among smokers in the State of Perlis, of Malaysia.