Smoking Cessation Online Service (SCOS) in Thailand: A Pilot Study

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop a smoking cessation online service (SCOS) for cigarette smokers. The SCOS website was developed via Flash Professional® program version 9.0 with software that included Mozilla™, Java®, and Windows™. Twenty-five volunteers accessed SCOS. Five trained hospital pharmacists were responsible for the online counselling service. Most volunteers were males with a history of smoking of at least ten years, were aged between 21 to 30 years, and were in the low income bracket. Twenty-five per cent of the volunteers stated that they were ready to quit smoking. The most common method of smoking cessation was to give up smoking at once (48%). Results showed that attitudes towards smoking perceptions were positively high with a mean score of 28.52 out of 30. Volunteers also stated they thought SCOS was interesting and useful. They liked the functions of the program as well as its benefits. Recommendations included the extension of the study into different areas, the continuation of SCOS as an alternative for quitting smoking and the evaluation of the effectiveness of SCOS alongside current methods of smoking cessation, such as face-to-face counselling, home visits and phone calls.