Abstract
Objective: When our facility was made non-smoking, there was an increase in secret smoking among people undergoing our one-night-stay ningen dock because they could not cope with being unable to smoke for such a long time. With the objectives of mitigating the symptoms arising from being unable to smoke and giving people the incentive to cease smoking, we provided those who wished it with counseling on giving up smoking, which included the application of a nicotine patch and providing them with information on its use and smoking cessation. As people said things like "Using the patch made me feel OK" and "I ceased smoking afterwards", we decided to conduct a survey on the outcome of smoking cessation support centering on the use of a nicotine patch.
Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey of 142 smokers who underwent a 1-night-stay ningen dock between January and June 2008, sending the questionnaire to them by mail.
Results: The questionnaire recovery rate was 33.8%. In the section on smoking cessation counseling, the responses "I could use the nicotine patch" and "I understood how to purchase nicotine patches" were ranked 1st and 2nd, respectively. Regarding interest in smoking cessation, 75% of respondents were between being interested in stopping smoking and preparing to do something about it, and 76% were using a nicotine patch. However, only 14.6% succeeded in stopping smoking and we considered that others who had wanted to stop but did not succeed were unable to cope with the stress and irritability.
Conclusions: Our smoking cessation counseling centering on the use of a nicotine patch is considered to have increased interest in smoking cessation by allowing people to experience the beneficial effects of the patch and gain a correct understanding of the merits of smoking cessation. The fact that only 14.6% succeeded in stopping smoking indicates that measures taken against the disappearance of smoking as a means of relieving stress and other aspects of psychological dependence on the smoking habit were insufficient. However, we noted that providing support for smoking cessation in this manner was a motivating force in changing smoking behavior.
