Page 75 - TAIWAN TOBACCO CONTROL ANNUAL REPORT 2019

Taiwan smokers’ Helpline of the Administration was established in 2003 and was the first consultation helpline created for smokers who want to quit in the region of Asia. The helpline is serviced by professional personnel with counseling and smoking cessation consultation skills. Until the year of 2018, the helpline has helped over 1.24 million people calling for consultation on smoking cessation. It has also helped more than 150 thousand people in setting the smoking cessation date. Based on the calculation of the success rate for smoking cessation of 44.49%, the helpline has successfully helped 60,000 people in quitting smoking successfully. In 2018, relevant information was released on occasion of Chinese New Year, Women and Children's Day and Mother’s Day to motivate smokers to kick their habit and thereby improve their health and self-confidence and increase their spending power, happiness, and well-being. The general public was instructed to fully utilize empathic counseling personnel as smoking cessation coaches to facilitate this process. To distract attention from tobacco as well as thoughts on the improvement of smoking cessation on the living quality, such as healthy body, clean hair and clothes, fresh air and money saving etc. Examination on the reasons and benefits of quitting smoking on one’s self at any time, tips on smoking cessation for strengthening the driving force for smoking cessation, and education on tobacco hazards as well as encouragement to the smoking population on the use of smokers’ helpline as much as possible in order to keep away from the tobacco addiction. In the future, diverse promotion channels will be utilized continuously in order to increase the utilization by the smoking population and to continuously maintain the service quality and to control indices according to quality management, providing quality feedback, thereby Taiwan Smokers’ Helpline service can be continuously provided to smokers with quality and effectiveness. One of the keys to success of smoking cessation is the setting of a cessation date to demonstrate the intention and determination to quit smoking. The data indicates that the smoking cessation success rate of smokers who set a cessation date is 1.3-2 times higher than that of smokers who fail to do so. (Table 1-10) Implementation of relevant policies and therapy programs in recent years has generated an environment highly conducive to smoking cessation. In addition, under the influence of the social encouragement on smoking cessation, the Smokers’ Help-line center has become an important part of the smoking cessation service system in Taiwan. Table1-10 SmokingCessationSuccessMultiplier Year Success rate Multiple Cessation date set Cessation date not set 2014 50.5% 37.2% 1.34 2015 66.7% 33.3% 2 2016 51.1% 33.7% 1.52 2017 58.2% 30.7% 3.14 2018 56% 30.8% 1.82 73 Reducing the Demand for Tobacco