Assessment of Readiness to Quit Smoking Behaviour among Smokers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Author(s): Hooriyah and Pradeep Kumar R*
Abstract
Background: In the stages of the change model for smoking cessation, “willingness to quit” forms the starting point. The impact of the increasing burden of smoking among low and middle?income countries is well established. To determine the willingness to quit smoking among and quit attempts among smokers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu Methods: A validated pre-tested Questionnaire was used to assess the willingness to quit. Responses were tabulated in Microsoft Excel and statistical analysis was done using SPSS version 27.0 and chi square tests. Results: From the present study, it was found that 42.3% of the smokers belong to the pre contemplation stage, 17.5% of them belong to the contemplation stage, whereas 40.1% of them were ready to quit smoking. The p value for this was 0.049 (<0.05) and hence statistically significant. Conclusion: From this study we can conclude that the majority of the smoker population has a high readiness to quit smoking. Smoking is a major public health problem. Continued effort to control and eliminate this abuse is a medical necessity. Hence, more workshops on the importance of smoking cessation should be conducted.