Guideline to assess nicotine dependency

The 2015 clinical smoking cessation guideline will be adopted in 112 hospitals from 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities since from May this year.

The guideline released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission on Wednesday is a revised version of the previous guideline in 2007.

The new guideline will help doctors to assess a patient's dependency level on smoking. It also gives a list of recommended assistive drugs, the dose and possible side effects.

China-Japan Friendship Hospital will take the leading role to train the medical staff who will work in the smoking cessation clinics at those 112 hospitals.

Wang Chen, president of the hospital, said up to 80 percent of smokers are diagnosed to have nicotine dependency. "A kind of chronic disease that needs professional help from doctors," he said.

According to Wang, only 3 percent of people never tried to smoke again within a year after quitting. Without medical help, only one in a hundred smokers could quit successfully.

"With the assistance of medical treatment, success rate of smoking cessation could rise to 40 percent," he said.

Mao Qun'an, press officer from the commission, said about one million people died from smoking-related diseases in China every year.

He said survey shows that only 26 percent of smokers in China are willing to quit—the lowest rate among the developing countries