Comparing effects of auricular acupressure with and without an internet-assisted program on smoking cessation and self-efficacy of adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to develop an Internet-assisted smoking cessation program accompanied with auricular acupressure, and compare the quit rate and self-efficacy of youth smokers receiving auricular acupressure with and without the Internet-assisted smoking cessation program.


METHODS
A Website was constructed on IBM Websphere 5.0 and DB2 database using HTML, Javascript, and JSP. A quasiexperimental research design was adopted. Subjects were assigned nonrandomly to two groups. Group 1 received auricular acupressure plus the Internet-assisted smoking cessation program, whereas group 2 received auricular acupressure only.


METHODS
The data of demographic factors, serum cotinine, quitting rate, nicotine dependence, and self-efficacy of subjects were collected before and after a 4-week intervention.


RESULTS
After intervention, the quit rate was 15.78% in group 1 and 2.56% in group 2. Nicotine dependence was significantly lowered in group 1, but remained unchanged in group 2. The improvement of self-efficacy between groups 1 and 2 was significantly different.


CONCLUSIONS
The combination of auricular acupressure and Internet-assisted smoking cessation program was more efficacious than auricular acupressure alone in terms of quit rate.
Department of Applied Mathematics, Chung-Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Hsing-Hsia
HH
Chen
Mei-Ling
ML
Yeh
Yu-Hui
YH
Chao
D015669:Acupuncture Points; D020831:Acupuncture, Ear / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D016497:Adolescent Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D003367:Cotinine / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008297:Male; D012648:Self Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020377:Self Efficacy; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D014029:Tobacco Use Disorder / Q000097:blood / Q000628:therapy*
D003367:Cotinine