The study from the National Statistical Office showed that there were more than 10 million active smokers in Thailand from 2000 to 2015, and the cost to society from tobacco use continued to mount, including direct medical costs and indirect costs from losing productivity due to early morbidity and mortality. Many people widely know about smoking's adverse effects. These effects are cardiovascular diseases such as Myocardial infarction and stroke, respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, gastrointestinal diseases, cancer, infertility, congenital anomalies, and socioeconomic problems. If someone can quit or reduce smoking, they can prevent all these health and economic problems. Past studies showed that many smokers try to quit smoking but do not succeed due to many factors. So, smoking reduction may be a more achievable goal for them. Once smoking reduction is encouraged, it can lead to further efforts to achieve cessation. So, the objective of this study is to find the associated factors of smoking reduction that will be used to develop further interventions to encourage people to reduce smoking and may lead to complete smoking cessation in the future. We aimed to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of smoking reduction among patients of the smoking cessation clinic, Thawung hospital, Lopburi, Thailand. A quantitative, cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of smoking reduction among patients at the smoking cessation clinic at Thawung hospital.
The data were collected from case record forms and the hospital database of the smoking cessation clinic of Thawung hospital, Lopburi, Thailand. There were 96 patients participated in this study. The prevalence of smoking reduction among patients at the smoking cessation clinic was 72.9% of all participants. Most of the participants were male patients. The significant factors correlated with smoking reduction were the number of visits to the smoking cessation clinic and being in the preparation stage from the stage of change model. A smoker who cannot suddenly stop smoking would benefit from the smoking reduction, which can lead to further success in smoking cessation. This study showed that the frequency of visit to the clinic affect the success of smoking reduction, so an intervention program should be developed aiming to increase the participants and follow-up rate of patient attending this clinic. Stage of change is also a basic method to evaluate the patient's mind and motivation to choose the proper interventions or treatment for each patient.
