Aim and objective:
The Ministry of Health of Turkey have led different smoking cessation drug delivery programs throughout different years. The last donation program provides Varenicline and nicotine patch. The aim of this study was to compare the features of service users attending to Ege University Public Health Department’s smoking cessation outpatient clinic during the Ministry of Health’s drug donation period and the period without donation.

Methods:
All attendees (n=353) to Ege University Public Health Department’s smoking cessation outpatient clinic during January-June 2017 (period of no donation) and January-June 2018 (the latest period with governmental drug donation) were included in this cross-sectional study. The socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education, social class), smoking parameters (daily consumption, pack-years, nicotine-dependency level, previous quitting experience and number), health status (depression score, a physician’s advice, presence of a chronic disease) and their treatment (drug choice, counselling duration) were compared in these two different periods. The chi-square and independent samples Student t tests were used for analyses.

Results:
Among all attendees, 140 (39.7%) were women and their mean age was 39.6 (±12.6), with 76.2% graduated from high school. Among participants, 167 (47.3%) had applied during the period without donation, versus 186 (52.7%) during the donation period. During the donation period, 83.5% of attendees had high school and over educational attainment versus 72.2% in the period with no donation (p=0.011). Among women, regarding social class, white collar patients have admitted more during the drug donation period (p=0.026). The prescription of varenicline had significantly increase during the donation period (21.0% versus 61.8%, p<0.001). There was no significant difference for other socio-demographic variables (age, gender, marital status), smoking parameters (daily consumption, pack-years, nicotine-dependency level, previous quitting experience and number), health status (depression score, a physician’s advice, presence of a chronic disease) and duration of counselling (p>0.05).

Conclusions:
Free-of-charge delivery of smoking cessation drugs through the ministry has successfully reached the more-educated and better social class smokers with a tendency to quit. More efforts should be made to reach disadvantaged groups in the community.