EVALUATION OF ADOLESCENT SMOKERS WHO CALLED TAIWAN SMOKERS’ HELPLINE

Abstract Background In 1997, the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan passed the “Tobacco Harm Control Act”, which restricts the intake of addictive substances by smokers. On January 3, 2003, the Department of Health and Welfare established Asia's first smoking cessation hotline - "Taiwan Smokers’ Helpline Service Center". On April 30, 2021, Changhua Christian Hospital took charge the Smokers’ Helpline Service. Objectives The aims of the study were to realize the effectiveness of this smokers’ helpline for young smokers, and explore related factors. Methods The author collected the data of adolescent smokers aged under 18 years old who called Taiwan Smokers’ Helpline from May1 to November 30, 2021, and analyzed related data, discussed the factors influencing rate of successfully quit smoking. Results The data was compared according to whether the adolescent case had successfully quit smoking (consistent non-smoking for more than 6 months). Totally 312 teenage smokers were enrolled, 83.7% were male, average age was 15.8 (SD 1.3) year-old, 88.8% were student, 31.7% smoked for 2-3 years, 69.2% were daily smoker, 38.8% smoked less than 10 cigarettes per day, 35.6% had experience of using electronic cigarette, 27.6% experienced withdrawal syndrome, 71.2% were low tobacco dependence (according to FTND), 69.6% had quitted smoking for at least 24 hours in the past year. 26.0% successfully quit smoking (continuous smoking cessation rate). The author found relating factors for successfully smoking cessation were gender, area of residence, daily smoker, amount of daily tobacco use, family request for quit tobacco smoking, appearance of physical withdrawal syndrome during quitting smoking or reduce smoking amount, total score of FTND, and whether there had been an attempt not to smoke for at least 24 hour in the past year. The accuracy rate of our prediction model for successfully quit tobacco smoking due to related factors is 70.0 %. Discussion & Conclusion The Smokers’ Helpline is helpful for adolescent smokers to quit tobacco smoking, the continuous smoking cessation rate was 26.0% of this study. Some significant relating factors were found, the accuracy of prediction rate is acceptable. References W.H.C. Li, S.S.C. Chan, M.P. Wang, K.Y. Ho, Y.T.Y. Cheung, V.W.F. Chan, T.H. Lam. An Evaluation of the Youth Quitline Service Young Hong Kong Smokers. J Adolesc Health. 2017 May; 60(5):584-591.