Characteristics of patients who visited smoking cessation clinic

Abstract

Objective To analyze the characteristics, smoking status, smoking quitting experience, severity of nicotine dependence, withdrawal symptoms of the patients who visited the smoking cessation clinic at China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing.Methods Data of 452 smoking patients who visited the clinic during January 2005 to July 2007 were retrospectively analyzed for their smoking status, nicotine dependence, symptoms of withdrawal, and so on.Results The patients studied included 397 men and 55 women, with mean age of 42 years and average length of 21 years of smoking 20 cigarettes per day, and 45.1 percent of them were white collars with higher education and incomes.Their Fagerstrom Tolerance (nicotine dependence) Questionnaire (FTQ) score averaged 5.4.Three hundred and eighty of them (84.1%) had ever tried to quit smoking, but 335 of them (74.1%) did not get any help in their quitting attempts and relied only on their own efforts.Most of them smoked after meals and the most difficult thing for them was craving for cigarettes during their smoking quitting Two hundred and sixty-three of them (58.2%) knew smoking cessation clinic from newspaper or other media.Conclusions Smokers who visited smoking cessation clinic focused in those with higher levels of education and incomes, and their motivation of clinic visits mainly was for their benefit of health.Banning cigarette smoking in public places and publicity of hazards caused by smoking in media play active roles in promoting smokers to visit smoking cessation clinic. Key words: Smoking cessation ; Behavior addictive; Nicotine replacement therapy