| Summary: | 碩士 === 大葉大學 === 健康產業管理碩士在職學位學程 === 106 === Betel nut is the fourth most used addictive substance in the world. Studies indicate that after the habits of smoking and drinking are under control, the probability for those who chew betel nut to suffer from oral cancer is 58.4 times higher than those who do not. In 2014, oral cancer ranked the fifth in Taiwan's top ten cancer mortality rates. Despite the fact that the government has vigorously educated the public about the dangers of betel nuts in recent years and worked on promoting betel-nut ceasing classes, the results are limited. Therefore, the study targeted the individual cases with the habit of consuming betel nut in order to understand whether there was a correlation among their knowledge on betel nut, their confidence in quitting it and their dependence on it and then to develop measures related to betel nut cessation and case management plan.
This was a descriptive study, whose subjects were patients of a regional hospital in Yulin, Chiayi and Tainan area and folks in the community with the habit of chewing betel nut, totaling 120 persons. Based on the analysis, the average age at which respondents began chewing betel nut was 22.89 years old, the average years of chewing the nut was 24, and the average number of betel nuts consumed per day was 28. 73.33% of the respondents demonstrated betel nut dependency syndrome.
It can be found from the analysis using Pearson's correlation coefficient that knowledge on betel nut and confidence in quitting it did not have a significant relationship (p = 0.069), but there was a positive trend. On the other hand, there was no significant relationship between knowledge on betel nut and dependence on it (p= 0.511), but it showed a negative trend. Further analysis indicated that there was a significant relationship among knowledge on betel nut and the time of betel nut chewing (p <0.05), age (p= 0.005), occupation (p=0.02) and family support (p=0.03). However, significant relationship could be found between confidence in quitting betel nut and betel nut dependence (p<0.01), betel nut chewing time (p <0.05) and the number of chewing betel consumed (p<0.01), and they were also negatively correlated. In addition, there was a significant correlation between betel nut dependence and the number of betel nuts chewed (p<0.01), which showed a positive trend.
The results of this study provide a reference for developing betel nut cessation policies in the future so as to enhance the effectiveness of quitting betel nut chewing.
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