The willingness of smoking cessation and its determinants.

Objective To explore the determinants of willingness to quit smoking among regular smokers,and to provide a scientific basis for establishing smoking cessation strategies for adult smokers.Methods The study was conducted between April to August 2006.A stratified multistage cluster sampling design was used to select residents from 10 streets in Shenyang.Households were then randomly selected from the communities of the selected streets.The average of 40 adult smokers were selected from each of 20 communities.The information of age,gender and smoking status was collected from 801 participants.Results The rate of voluntary cessation of smoking was 30.7%(29.8% in male and 46.7% in female).The government employees had the highest proportion of voluntary cessation of smoking(47.5%),followed by retired population(36.7%)and technical professionals(21.4%).The associated factors of smoking cessation include objection from relatives,public opinion,the advocacy efforts and measures of tobacco control.Conclusion The proportion of voluntary smoking cessation was low in Shenyang.Additional advocacy efforts and control measures should be taken to encourage the cessation of smoking.