Health Education Research, Vol. 18, No. 2, 216-223,
April 2003
© 2003 Oxford University Press
Oral tobacco cessation with UK resident Bangladeshi women: a community pilot investigation
Dental Public Health and 1 Oral Pathology, Barts and The London, Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary (University of London), London E1 2AD, 2 Imperial Cancer Research Fund Health Behaviour Unit, Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London WC1E 6BT and 3 Social Action for Health, The Brady Centre, Hanbury Street, London E1 5HU, UK. E-mail: r.e.croucher{at}mds.qmw.ac.uk
Our objective was to establish the short-term outcomes for successful tobacco cessation of a programme offering UK resident Bangladeshi women chewing paan with tobacco nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in addition to brief advice and encouragement alone. We used a short-term longitudinal, quasi-experimental study design, in the setting of two local authority housing estates in Tower Hamlets, London. Bangladeshi women volunteers were recruited following presentations to community groups. The volunteers were assigned, after matching for age, number of paan with tobacco chewed daily and medical screening, to receive one of two tobacco cessation interventions (NRT with brief encouragement and advice, and brief advice and encouragement alone). The main outcome measures were changes in tobacco use and nicotine dependence, assessed by questionnaire and intake measures, adverse effects, and withdrawal symptoms. In total, 130 volunteers were recruited. Their mean age was 42.5 years (SD = 11.3). Mean number of paan quid with tobacco chewed daily was 10.7 (SD = 9.3) and the average age of starting to add tobacco to paan was 24 years (SD = 12). Ninety-one percent completed the 4-week trial. We found that 19.5% had stopped tobacco use, of whom 22% had received NRT, and 17% brief advice and encouragement alone. The successful members of the NRT group made a significantly greater reduction in their salivary cotinine scores at final review compared to baseline. Oral pain was reported as a barrier to successful oral tobacco cessation by 62% of the volunteers at final review. We conclude that methods identified as helping tobacco smokers successfully stop smoking can be used with Bangladeshi women chewing paan with tobacco. More research is needed to investigate these short-term outcomes and to explore the particular barriers to successful cessation for this group such as oral pain.