Abstract
This study aimed to report the effectiveness of community pharmacy smoking cessation services in 13 health regions in Thailand using a retrospective data-collecting method from the Foundation of Community Pharmacy database. The participants were smokers aged at least 18 years. The outcomes were the abstinence of smoking at least 30 consecutive days by self-report only and self-report with exhaled CO level <7 ppm (if available), the number of cigarettes smoked daily, exhaled carbon monoxide (exhaled CO), and % peak expiratory flow rate (%PEFR); smokers measured these outcomes before and after receiving the smoking cessation services. Of 58 community pharmacies, 532 smokers (93% male, mean age of 42.4 ± 14.9 years) received smoking cessation services from community pharmacists. Of 235 smokers with complete data, 153 (28.8%, 153/532) smokers reported smoking abstinence by self-report. The mean number of cigarettes smoked daily reduced from 15.3 ± 8.7 to 1.9 ± 3.8 cigarettes, p-value < 0.001. The exhaled CO levels of smokers significantly reduced from 11.7 ± 5.9 ppm to 7.2 ± 4.4 ppm, p-value < 0.001. The %PEFR also significantly increased from 84.2 ± 19.4 to 89.5 ± 19.5, p-value < 0.001. In conclusion, Thai community pharmacy smoking cessation services could aid smokers to quit smoking. This study is the outcome of the real-world community pharmacy smoking cessation service; policymakers should consider this service to be included in the national healthcare policy.
Highlights
Smoking is one of the main leading causes of illness, disability, and death globally.Over 8 million deaths have been due to tobacco use, either by direct smoking or secondhand smoke [1]
The community pharmacies participating in this study offer smoking cessation services in local communities; some have offered these services for more than a decade [16,17,18]
This study found that the community pharmacy smoking cessation services resulted in 28.8% of smokers quitting for at least 30 days, as identified by self-reporting
Summary
Smoking is one of the main leading causes of illness, disability, and death globally.Over 8 million deaths have been due to tobacco use, either by direct smoking or secondhand smoke [1]. Smoking is one of the main leading causes of illness, disability, and death globally. Classifications of Disease (ICD 10), diagnosis code Z72.0 [3] It has become a global noncommunicable disease (NCD) target to reduce tobacco use because it constitutes one of the risk factors leading to much acute or chronic illness, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, or coronary artery disease (CAD) [4]. Due to this harm, the World Health Organization (WHO) promoted healthcare facilities to encourage
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