Introduction: This study seeks to identify the socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics of smokers (aged 18 and above), thus develop a predicting model for tobacco abstinence receiving cessation services for tobacco dependence at the Smoking Cessation Clinics (SCC) in government Primary Health Centers in Malaysia. These predictors would improve the effectiveness and efficiency of these clinics.
Methods : Smokers who sought smoking cessation therapy at the SCCs from 1st January 2004 to 31st
December 2004 were chosen randomly from clinic’s registries, and 254 smokers were recruited from 8 clinics chosen through stratified random sampling. Data analyses were performed with SPSS 12.0. 17.3% of smokers attending SCCs were able to quit smoking for at least six months.
Results : Factors significantly contributing to quitting success were elderly smokers (above 40 years old), smoked for more than 15 years, smoked less than ten sticks per day, had a previous history of quitting attempt, self referral to the clinic, high confidence level, attended SCC at least four times, each counseling session lasted for at least 30 minutes and were satisfied with the clinic service. In logistic regression model, smokers aged 40 years and above were 6.7 times more successful to quit, high level of confidence were nine times more successful, smoked more than ten sticks per day were ten times less successful, self referred smokers were ten times more successful and attending for at least 30 minutes counseling session were 12 times more successful.
Conclusion : This study concludes that more concerted effort is needed to approach various groups of target population and SCCs clinic services need to be improved.
Assistant environmental health officers (AEHO) are health care providers (HCPs) who act as enforcers, educators and trusted role models for the public. This is the first study to explore smoking behaviour and attitudes toward tobacco control among future HCPs. Almost 30% of AEHO trainees did not know the role of AEHOs in counselling smokers to stop smoking, but 91% agreed they should not smoke before advising others not to do so. The majority agreed that tobacco control regulations may be used as a means of reducing the prevalence of smoking. Future AEHOs had positive attitudes toward tobacco regulations but lacked understanding of their responsibility in tobacco control measures.
The use of tobacco by adolescents is a major public health concern worldwide. There are 1.2 billion smokers globally, of which more than 50% are young people. The Southeast Asian countries have about 600 million tobacco smokers within the global burden of tobacco users. Most smokers begin at early stage of life and persist through adulthood. Malaysia alone has about 5 million smokers, 20% of whom are younger than 18 years old. Many factors are implicated in the continuous rising trend of tobacco use among adolescents in Southeast Asia. A triad of family, environmental, and individual factors synergistically acts to motivate adolescents toward smoking. This article discusses the current trends of tobacco use and implications of increasing rise in adolescent smoking in the Southeast Asia region.