Smoking Cessation Programme in Workplaces in Hong Kong (Phase III)

Overview

Smoking causes cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancers and diabetes, and it has been a leading risk factor for death globally. Despite the availability of smoking cessation services locally, most smokers do not use such services. Workplace is one of the most convenient platforms to provide smoking cessation services and over 55% of smokers are employed according to the local population-based survey. However, the effectiveness of a smoking cessation programme conducted in workplace is yet to be examined in Hong Kong, and the attitudes and practices of corporations in promoting smoking cessation are not clear. Thus, this study aims to examine the employers'/managerial staff's knowledge, attitudes and practices in promoting smoking cessation in workplace and evaluate the smoking behaviours of participants before and after attending a smoking cessation intervention.

This study will separate into two phases. Phase I is a large scale cross-sectional survey to corporations in Hong Kong to examine the employers' knowledge, attitudes and practices in promoting smoking cessation in the workplace. Phase II is a randomized controlled trial study to evaluate the effectiveness of a smoking cessation intervention to assess the subjects' smoking behaviors, knowledge on smoking and satisfaction of the smoking cessation services. The investigators are interested to know if the intervention package including health education,social media and telephone follow-up would trigger higher quit rate or other changes in smoking behaviors. The investigators will also monitor the smoking status of the subjects regularly through telephone follow-ups, understand the company's practices about smoke-free policy as well as evaluate the outcomes of the intervention. The primary outcome of the study is to measure participated smokers' self-reported 7-day point prevalence quit rate at 26 weeks follow-ups. The secondary outcomes include participated smokers' (i) self-reported reduction rate at 52 weeks follow-ups; (ii) self-reported quit attempt at 26 and 52 weeks follow-ups; (iii) self-reported reduction rate at 26 and 52 weeks follow-ups; (iv) Engagement in social media intervention. Data of the above outcomes will be collected through telephone interviews (follow-ups) by the investigators. Descriptive statistics will be used to measure the (1) basic info of the participants, including the total number of employees and smoking employees; (2) knowledge on smoking of employers/managerial staff; (3) attitudes on smoking cessation of employers/managerial staff; (4) practices of the corporations with respect to smoking cessation. Logistic regression, linear regression and spearman correlation coefficient will be used to examine the relationships between corporates' policy in smoking cessation and the knowledge and attitudes of employers/ managerial staff. Chi square and t-test will also be used to compare the quit rates between groups and logistic regression will be used to predict quitting. Data will be entered and analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23.