Long-term outcomes of a tertiary care university affiliated hospital’s smoking cessation outpatient clinic: Experience from the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey

Abstract

Introduction: In our country, smoking cessation outpatient clinics (SCCs) provide access to free smoking cessation treatments and provide important treatment support to smokers. This study aims to evaluate the long-term outcomes of our SCC in the outpatient setting of Chest Diseases Department in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey.

Method: Our sample consists of patients aged 18 years and older, who applied to SCC between January 2018 and May 2019. In this retrospective cohort study, those who used the treatment for more than 1 month were considered “adherent to treatment”, and those who stopped smoking for two years from the target smoking cessation day were considered “successful” in quitting smoking.

Results: The mean age of the 425 patients included was 38±12 years, 73.4% of them were men. While 44% of the patients used the treatment for more than 1 month, 56% used it for 1 month or less. In the second year of their application to SCC, 20.5% of patients were successful in quitting smoking. According to the multivariate logistic regression analysis, being a student, having higher FTND score and presence of withdrawal symptoms have positively associated with failure to quit smoking. Low cessation medication use duration, experiencing sleep related side effects and digestive system related side effects during smoking cessation treatment have negatively associated with failure to quit (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Considering the factors that are effective in smoking cessation success, the standards of smoking cessation outpatient services need to be updated.