| Summary: | Background
Thai community pharmacists play a vital role in helping smokers to quit smoking. This
study aimed to examine the roles of community pharmacists across Thailand
regarding smoking cessation services according to the 5 A's approach: ask, advise, assess,
assist, and arrange.
Methods
This is a cross-sectional
study using a self-administered questionnaire via
post, to collect information from the participants across Thailand. The
participants were community pharmacists who provided smoking cessation services
in their community pharmacies. Main outcomes were 5 A's activities provided by the
community pharmacists. The participants were asked
about their performing 5
A's in smoking cessation services in which they
were asked to rate their frequency of 5 A's
practices in one of 4 categories: all
the time, often, rarely, and never. Descriptive statistics
were carried out for data analysis using STATA software.
Results
Of 152 respondents who
completed and returned the questionnaire, 61% were women, 76%
had an assistant pharmacist; 49%
had been working as pharmacists of less than 10 years; 61% were members of the Thai
Pharmacy Network for Tobacco Control. Ninety-five
percent claimed that they asked their patients/customers
about tobacco use status however only 38%
asked all the time. About 97%
advised to quit smoking but 30%
advising all the time. About 93%
assessed willingness to quit with 28%
assessing all the time. Unfortunately,
only 39% and 9% assisted
smokers to quit and arranged for follow-up after providing the
services all the time, respectively.
Conclusions
The study showed that more than 90% of community pharmacists did follow 5 A's for their practices in smoking cessation; however, they did not practice 5 A's all the time. Roles of community pharmacists in smoking cessation should be promoted and
supported to encourage them to fully service all the time to help smokers to quit.
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