INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Smoking is one of the major preventable causes of morbidity and mortality. The aim of our study is to determine the factors affecting smoking cessation success of current smokers who attend our clinic.
METHODS: Current smokers who admit our Smoking Cessation Clinic were contacted by phone and filled a questionnaire if they consent to participate.
RESULTS: We contacted 190 (F/M: 61/129, median age: 39.5; min 19, max 78) attendees. Smoking cessation rates were 32.6% in males (n=42) and 14.2% (n=9) in females (p=0.016). The quitters were 38.8% (n=19) in individuals >50, and 22.7% (n=32) in those aged ≤50yrs (p=0.045). Of those who continued treatment regularly 53.8% (n=14) quit smoking while 22.6% of those who did not (n=37) were able to quit (p = 0.002). 10.5% (n=4) of those who started smoking <15 yrs of age were able to quit whereas 31.1% (n=47) of those who started smoking at 15 years or older age were able to quit smoking (p=0.019). We found that smoking cessation rates in males were 3.86 fold higher than females (CI: 1.65 - 9.03) (p=0.002) also those who started smoking at ≥15 yrs of age had 5.33 (CI: 1.69-16.75) fold higher smoking cessation rates than smokers who started smoking before the age of 15 (p=0.004). We also found that continuing treatment regularly increased success rate of smoking cessation by 4.31 fold (CI: 1.72-10.79) (p<0.001).
CONCLUSION: It was found that males, the ones who started smoking at higher ages and regular followers of treatment course were found to be more successful. It is essential to emphasize the importance of these factors to candidates to boost success rates.