Smoking Cessation In Saudi Arabia Research Paper Examples

Saudi Arabia is one of the countries hit hard by tobacco epidemic and critically require saving. Consequently, a fully funded, sustainable, and broad strategy to control tobacco in such countries is necessary to promote quality health. To manage this strategy, a country heavily relies on the support of trained professionals in running programs aimed at reducing smoking. Sadly and much to the contrary, the health professionals themselves use tobacco more regularly compared to even the general community who they are supposed to care for.
According to our study, most tobacco users regardless of their gender prefer waterpipe as their chosen form of tobacco smoking. Moreover, the study revealed that about 15% of public health care personnel are themselves current smokers. This value was substantially elevated when compared with other values from studies conducted in other parts of the world such as Bahrain at 8.6%, Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates at 8.3%, and Vietnam 9.2%.The value was also higher compared to developed countries such as the USA at 7%, Switzerland 12%, New Zealand 5% and the UK.
In contrast, the figure from our study was significantly lower than that from studies in some parts of the world such as Italy recording 28%, Jordan 65% and Egypt at 65% where Alexandria alone recorded 45% smoking prevalence among PHC personnel. Of importance to note also is that further studies have shown that developing countries record a higher prevalence of tobacco smoking among health care professionals compared to developed countries. This trend has been linked to better education, improved health system and intensive anti-tobacco training programs in developed countries.
As our study revealed, approximately 24% of males currently smoke tobacco daily compared to meager 9% of females. Moreover, the pattern of smoking in both men and women differ between developing and developed countries and our study firmly attributed this to the cultural differences in the countries.40-60% Males and approximately 2-10% females smoke in developing countries compared to the 25-35% men and women who smoke in developed countries. Our study also revealed a higher proportion of more female physicians who smoke tobacco contrary to findings from some areas such as Malaysia, China, and Vietnam where no women smoke.
An earlier study in Italy, however, showed that the country had the highest prevalence of female smokers at approximately 34%.Our study was consistent with other previous studies in indicating that more males compared to females smoke among most populations. We have mainly attributed this to cultural factors particularly the social stigma attached to female tobacco smoking. However, this factor is not observed to be necessarily true for waterpipe smoking as in cigarette smoking. This phenomenon likely explains the female physician smoking pattern in our study where 9% of the women are waterpipe smokers while a mere 0% are cigarette smokers.
Our study also found that only 25% of smokers started smoking before attaining the age 18 years. It is, therefore, likely that the earlier a person begins smoking, the more likely they are to continue. As a matter of fact, Alexandria posted 25.3% for those who started smoking before their eighteenth birthday. More recent studies in Saudi Arabia show that averagely smoking begins at 15 years of age with a median of 16 years.
Current studies reveal that despite their large number, PHCP smokers have not attempted to quit smoking during the past year. However, 50% of them admitted that they are thinking of quitting tobacco use in the next six months. The studies also reveal that over half the participants regardless of whether they smoke or not, agree strongly that smoking should not be allowed in public places, tobacco products should not be advertised and that prices of tobacco and its products should be hiked drastically. None the less, even though tobacco prices have increased recently, cigarettes still continue to be inexpensive in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia as compared to other countries. This means that even the young and those with low income can obtain cigarettes at low costs.
Just as similar to the results from our study, most physicians; 91.3% in the United Arab Emirates and 75.6% in Kuwait, also strongly agree that smoking is detrimental to health. Also important to point out is that 37.5% of PHCPs regardless of whether they are smokers or not admitted to not being aware of the smoke-free policy of their health care regulation. Due to the personal smoking habits of health care personnel, they do not frequently offer cessation-related advice to smokers. Just as similar to our findings, studies in China also showed that compared to health care personnel who do not smoke, smokers are more likely not offer advice related to health risks associated with smoking and quitting.
Health care professionals are considered role models in the society and therefore their behavior concerning health related issues such as tobacco smoking should be greatly checked. Our study reaffirmed that approximately 72% of PHCPs have never received training concerning smoking cessation assistance. Similar studies conducted in Nordic countries revealed that 72% in Finland, 40% Sweden, 45% Norway, 52% Iceland of general practitioners had not received training to help support patients cease smoking. In our study, the figure of those who have received training is very low and as a matter of fact about 97% of the personnel were willing to attend training programs. Moreover, we realized that majority of PHC providers, about 67%, whether smoker or not, were prepared to assess patient preparedness and offer cessation counsel.8.7% were however not prepared.
Inadequate training is a poor attitude that needs immediate improvement. This is a pointer that the health system should embark on proper public health measures particularly by starting formalized training on health effects of tobacco, cessation programs, and anti-smoking campaigns and ensure compulsory participation from not only healthcare professionals but also students in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The limitation of our study was that information was mainly collected using questionnaires. This means there are likely to be cases of underreporting and recall bias.
Based on our findings, we recommend some measures to correct the tobacco epidemic in Saudi Arabia. Firstly, a broad medical education to all health care personnel concerning a change of attitude, improving knowledge and smoking cessation should be initiated. Secondly, intensive smoking cessation programs among health care professionals should be launched to ensure they remain good role models for their communities. Finally, smoking cessation programs should be entrenched as integral parts of existing PHC system. This means the cessation programs should be provided by all PHC staff in every clinic, and the staff should be even ready to assess willingness to quit among patients.