Go to a quit-smoking clinic, or call 12320 (China's public health hotline) to ask whether there is a quit-smoking service near you

Cost

A clinic registration costs a few to a few dozen CNY. Behavioral support is usually 4 to 8 face-to-face sessions of half an hour to an hour each, mostly under 5 hours in all. The hotline is free.

What you get

Pooling 52 trials with 19488 people, the quit rate in the medicine-plus-behavioral-support group was 1.83 times that in the usual care or brief advice group (RR 1.83, 95% CI 1.68–1.98, the plausible range; high-quality evidence). In the 43 trials that recruited people in health care settings it was 1.97 times (1.79–2.18). Phone counseling taken alone: among people who had called a quit line themselves, those who received multiple proactive call-backs did about 38% better than those who got only materials or a single call (RR 1.38, 95% CI 1.19–1.61, 14 trials, 32484 people). Where people had not called a quit line and the researchers provided phone counseling, the gain was about 25% (RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.15–1.35, 65 trials, 41233 people). Both are moderate-certainty evidence.

Notes

How to find help in China: in WeChat, search for the China Quit-Smoking Platform (中国戒烟平台) mini-program, which lists quit lines and quit-smoking clinics in each area; or call 12320 to ask whether your area has a quit-smoking clinic. Most of the trials above were done abroad, and the intensity of service at quit-smoking clinics varies a lot from place to place, so treat the numbers as a direction only. For the medicines to pair with this, see §2.3 (quit-smoking medicines).

Evidence grade

A : Specific numbers from meta-analyses, large cohorts or randomized trials; for law and policy, the statute or official text.

Sources

1. Stead LF, Koilpillai P, Fanshawe TR, Lancaster T (2016). Combined pharmacotherapy and behavioural interventions for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 3, CD008286. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008286.pub3
2. Matkin W, Ordóñez-Mena JM, Hartmann-Boyce J (2019). Telephone counselling for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 5, CD002850. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD002850.pub4
3. Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2021). "China Quit Smoking Platform" WeChat Mini Program Officially Launched [in Chinese]: "Under the guidance of the Tobacco Control Action Working Group of the Healthy China Initiative, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization Representative Office in China jointly produced the authoritative Chinese smoking cessation resource library, the 'China Quit Smoking Platform' WeChat Mini Program. The content of the Mini Program mainly includes: quit-smoking hotlines, detailed information on smoking cessation clinics, and online smoking cessation service resources, etc."
4. The footer of the same site gives "Health consultation hotline: 12320". https://www.chinacdc.cn/jkyj/yckz/gzdt/202203/t20220310_296389.html

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 2, tip 5. This section is about health and medicines. It is general information, not a substitute for a doctor’s diagnosis or prescription. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer