Effectiveness of advice from physician and nurse on smoking cessation stage in Taiwanese male smokers attending a community-based integrated screening program

BACKGROUND: A screening program provides a teachable moment for primary prevention such as encouraging smoking cessation. However, little is known about the efficacy of smoking cessation intervention delivered to the general population through a community-based screening program. METHODS: A quasi-experimental untreated control design with pre-test and post-test was conducted with 42 subjects receiving advice from physician and nurses (the PNA group), 39 receiving an informational leaflet (the leaflet group), and 308 control subjects. RESULTS: The overall rate of reaching the action stage was 25 %, 5.7 %, and 7.8 in the PNA group, the leaflet group, and the control group, respectively. In approximately 45–60 % of all participants, the stage remained unchanged. Such an association between the intervention groups and stage changes was statistically significant (p = 0.02). The PNA group was more likely to have the improvement of stage (forward transition toward action stage) than the control group [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.27 (1.07–4.84)]. Deterioration (backward transition toward precontemplation) in the PNA intervention group was 37 % lower than that in the control group [aOR = 0.63 (0.20–2.01)]. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that smoking cessation advice from physician and nurse is conducive to smoking cessation, as shown by greater movement toward and less movement away from smoking cessation through a community-based integrated screening platform. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12971-016-0080-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.