PolyU has recently launched a “Youth Quitline” to provide smoking cessation counselling to young people aged 25 or below. The Quitline, run by the School of Nursing’s Year-3 students, offers various support including assessments of nicotine dependence, formulating smoking cessation plans, suggesting methods to control smoking addiction, and providing free auricular cessation services, to help young smokers quit before getting more addicted to tobacco products.

With the establishment of the Quitline, nursing students are also given clinical placement opportunities to serve the youth under the pandemic. According to Professor David Shum, Yeung Tsang Wing Yee and Tsang Wing Hing Professor in Neuropsychology, Chair Professor of Neuropsychology and Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences of PolyU. many clinical placements originally planned at various hospitals have been suspended due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “With the launch of the ‘Youth Quitline’, we are training up our nursing students to become peer counsellors, preparing them to offer smoking cessation counselling to the public in their future capacity as professional nurses,” said Professor Shum.

Until now, the “Youth Quitline” has successfully served over 100 young smokers. By February next year, PolyU's School of Nursing is expected to have trained nearly 300 nursing students who are able to provide smoking cessation counselling, thereby better promoting the benefits of quitting smoking to the general public.

To learn more about the “Youth Quitline” operated by PolyU, please visit the official website.

Media reports about the “Youth Quitline”:
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Ta Kung Pao