Chinese and Vietnamese Adult Male Smokers' Perspectives Regarding Facilitators of Tobacco Cessation Behavior

Introduction: National surveys show a low prevalence of tobacco cigarette smoking within the Asian American/Pacific Islander population. However, smoking rates loom higher when data is disaggregated by ethnicity andgender. Nevertheless, few data are available on how smokers in this population quit smoking. The aim of thisstudy was to collect first-hand perspectives from adult male Chinese and Vietnamese current and former smokerswho were patients at a community clinic in Seattle, Washington, in order to understand the facilitators towardsmoking cessation and the methods that they might use to quit smoking.
Methods: A telephone survey wasadministered to age-eligible male Chinese and Vietnamese clinic patients who were current or former smokers.A total of 196 Chinese and 198 Vietnamese (N=394) adult male current and former smokers were contactedfrom a pool culled from the clinic database.
Results: Descriptive analysis using SPSS software revealed ethnicityspecificdifferences between current and former smokers regarding influences on smoking cessation behavioras well as uptake and endorsement of cessation methods. Family encouragement and physician recommendationswere significant facilitators on the cessation process. Will power and self-determination were frequentlymentioned by both Vietnamese and Chinese smokers as helpful methods to quit smoking. Vietnamese smokerswere more resourceful than Chinese smokers in their use of smoking cessation methods.
Conclusion: Even withaccess to cessation classes at a health clinic, half of current smokers indicated that they had no intention to quit.Such attitudes underscore the need for promotion of effective smoking cessation programs as well as successfulstrategies for reaching smokers. These conclusions are particularly important for Chinese smokers, who werecomparatively less resourceful in their use of smoking cessation methods. Future studies should explore integratingthe concept of will power with current mainstream state-of-the-art smoking cessation programs.