Who does or does not try to quit smoking?

Authors:
Rachael Murray, Jack Gibson and Frances Mather

Presenter:
Rachael Murray
Lecturer in Health Policy and Promotion, University of Nottingham, UK

Abstract
Objectives: To determine whether smokers who do not attempt to quit smoking differ from those who do, and to identify factors associated with making quit attempts.

Design: Retrospective cross-sectional analysis.

Participants: 1478 smokers who returned questionnaires regarding smoking history and habits in 2008.

Measurements: Age, gender, housing status, Townsend score, exercise activity, the presence of heart and respiratory disease.

Results: Of 1478 smokers who participated in both surveys, 639 (43.2%) reported a quit attempt in the past year while 839 (37.8%) did not. Smokers living in council-housing were more likely to have attempted to quit than owner-occupiers (OR = 1.47, 95% CI 1.11 – 1.92).
Smokers with heart (OR = 1.61, 95% CI 1.03 – 2.50) or respiratory disease (OR = 1.92, 95% CI 1.45 – 2.56) were more likely to make a quit attempt than those without. Older smokers were slightly less likely to have attempted to quit than younger smokers (OR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.51 – 1.00) and smokers who exercised 5 times or more per week were less likely to attempt to quit than those who took none
(OR = 0.68, 95% CI 0.51 – 0.90).

Conclusions: Future stop smoking interventions should be designed to specifically target those factors associated with resilience to quitting in order to engage these groups in smoking cessation activity.

Source of funding: Cancer Research UK

Declaration of interest: none

About the presenter
Rachel is currently a Lecturer in Health Policy and Promotion at the University of Nottingham, part of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies. Her mixed-methods research has to date has focused on investigating aspects of smoking cessation activity, including unplanned quit attempts, the use of effective cessation support and those smokers who do not attempt to quit.