| Summary: | Introduction
Tobacco causes more than 8 million deaths each year. Behavioral
interventions such as group therapy, which provides counselling for smoking
cessation, can be delivered in group form and smokers who receive cessation
counselling are more likely to quit smoking compared to no assistance. We review
the evidence of group-based counselling for smoking cessation for smokers in
Asian countries.
Methods
The review aims to determine the availability of group-based therapy for
smoking cessation in Asian countries. The outcome measured was abstinence
from smoking following group therapy. Electronic database searches in PubMed,
OVID Medline, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, and PsycINFO, using keywords such as:
‘smoking’, ‘cigarette’, ‘tobacco’, ‘nicotine’, ‘group therapy’ and ‘cessation’ (smok*,
*cigarette*, tobacco, nicotine, group therap*, cessation) were used. The results
were reported following PRISMA and PROSPERO guidelines. Review Manager
was used for data analysis.
Results
A total of 21251 records were retrieved for screening the abstracts. In all,
300 articles for review were identified and assessed for eligibility. Nine articles,
including Cochrane reviews, randomized control trials, cohort, observational
and cross-sectional studies, were included in the final review. There were three
observational qualitative studies, two prospective cohort studies, two crosssectional
studies, one non-randomized quasi-experimental study and a single
cluster-randomized, controlled trial. Group therapy was found to significantly
increase the abstinence rate. Group therapy provided at the workplace, smoking
cessation services, availability of pharmacotherapy, and socioeconomic status,
appear to be key factors determining success.
Conclusions
Evidence of the use of group therapy for smoking cessation in Asian
countries is still lacking despite publications in the Western population showed
that group therapy was effective. Further research on group-based interventions
for smoking cessation in Asian countries is required and direct one-to-one
comparisons between group therapy and individual therapy for smokers who
want to quit smoking, are needed.
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