| Summary: | Background and challenges to implementation
Base on the Malaysian National Health Morbidity Survey in 2011, 48.6% of smokers have made quit attempt in the past 12 months but only 32.4% visited health care provider (HCP). One of the main challenges of getting professional advice in quitting is due to limited cessation services within public clinics and hospital. To overcome this and in line with Article 14 WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Malaysia has developed a holistic and structured program under Malaysia Quit or mQuit services.
Intervention or response
The mQuit services
was inaugurated on 27 th November 2015 through public-private
partnership with the objective to make smoking cessation services accessible
throughout the public and private sectors. The services were further enhanced
with a quitline counselling system and a website to promote and facilitate
registration of smokers to cessation program through www.jomquit.moh.gov.my. Both
mQuit providers in public and private sectors have to fulfil standard criteria
set by the Ministry of Health before accreditation given and the list is made available
in the jomquit website. To date, 160 private HCP and 764 government health clinics and hospitals have become mQuit
providers.
Results and lessons learnt
The number of registered patients have increased from 7757
in 2015 to 10791 in 2016. Since services start in private sector, the total
number registered with private mQuit providers has increased from 10 patients
in January 2017 to total of 394 patients until June 2017. The total number of registration through
jomquit website was 420 patients. The implementation of the mQuit encountered a
few challenges at first. Challenges and recommendations are discussed with all
partners and remedial measures were applied to improve the services.
Conclusions and key recommendations
The mQuit services has increased accessibility to
smoking cessation services in Malaysia.
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