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A Brief Smoking Cessation Advice by Youth Counselors for the Smokers in the Hong Kong Quit to Win Contest 2010: a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

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Abstract

Smoking cessation counseling by healthcare professionals is effective, but very few healthcare professionals can deliver these interventions in the busy clinical settings. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief smoking cessation advice delivered by briefly-trained youth counselors at the enrolment of an incentive-based smoking cessation campaign. The study design was a cluster 2-arm randomized controlled trial of 831 Chinese adult smokers who were recruited in public areas to participate in the Hong Kong Quit to Win Contest 2010. The intervention group (n = 441) received a 5-min quitting advice from the youth counselors, who were mainly undergraduate nursing students, and a 12-page self-help smoking cessation booklet at the enrolment, while the control group (n = 390) only received the same booklet. Biochemically confirmed quitters at 6-month follow-up could join a lucky draw that offered HK$10,000 (US$1282) cash prize to three winners and HK$4000 gift vouchers to the other 10 winners. Primary outcome was self-reported smoking abstinence at 6-month follow-up. By intention-to-treat, the intervention group had a non-significantly higher self-reported (18.4 versus 13.8%, OR = 1.40, 95% CI 0.96–2.04, p = 0.08) and validated quit rate (9.1 versus 6.7%, OR = 1.40, 95% CI 0.84–2.33, p = 0.20) than the control group at 6-month follow-up. The analysis with multiple imputation for missing data also found similar results. We concluded that the brief on-site advice by trained youth counselors had a modest effect on smoking cessation, but the effect was not significant. Future studies with larger sample size and results from higher participation of the biochemical validation to confirm the effectiveness are warranted.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, 4/F William MW Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, China

    Sophia Siu Chee Chan & Yee Tak Derek Cheung

  2. Department of Health and Physical Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Yee Man Bonny Wong

  3. Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health, Hong Kong, China

    Antonio Kwong & Vienna Lai

  4. School of Public Health, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Tai-hing Lam

Authors
  1. Sophia Siu Chee Chan
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  2. Yee Tak Derek Cheung
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  3. Yee Man Bonny Wong
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  4. Antonio Kwong
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  5. Vienna Lai
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  6. Tai-hing Lam
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yee Tak Derek Cheung.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health (COSH).

Conflict of Interest

The chairman (Mr. Antonio Kwong) and the executive director (Ms. Vienna Lai) of the COSH are the co-authors of the present study. All authors do not have any connection with any researchers of the tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical or gaming industries or anybody substantially funded by one of these organizations, except Prof. Tai-hing Lam is the principal investigator, and Prof. Sophia Siu Chee Chan was the former investigator of the FAMILY project, which was funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (Institutional Review Board of the University of Hong Kong/Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster (IRB: UW 10–239)) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Chan, S.S.C., Cheung, Y.T.D., Wong, Y.M.B. et al. A Brief Smoking Cessation Advice by Youth Counselors for the Smokers in the Hong Kong Quit to Win Contest 2010: a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Prev Sci 19, 209–219 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0823-z

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