RESEARCH ARTICLE


Pathways to Smoking and Snus Use Cessation - Is Spontaneous Quitting Underrated?



Mats Toftgard*, 1, Hans Gilljam2, Tanja Tomson2
Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, 1Division of Applied Public Health, 2Division of SocialMedicine, Stockholm, Sweden

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 3
First Page: 20
Last Page: 23
Publisher Id: TOEPIJ-3-20
DOI: 10.2174/1874297101003010020

Article History:

Received Date: 10/12/2009
Revision Received Date: 05/03/2010
Acceptance Date: 18/03/2010
Electronic publication date: 20/4/2010
Collection year: 2010

© 2010Toftgard et al..

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Applied Public Health, P.O. Box 17070, SE-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden; Tel: +46 8 524 875 53;E-mail: mats.toftgard@ki.se


Abstract

Aim:

To investigate to what extent smokers and snus users in Sweden consider and plan their quit attempts in advance, and to assess if spontaneity is associated with success.

Methods:

A sample of 5999 Swedish men and women between 16 and 80 years were interviewed via telephone about current and former smoking and snus use and their latest quit attempts.

Results:

Among 2272 ex-smokers and current smokers who had ever made a serious quit attempt 48% reported to not having planned their latest attempt in advance. Furthermore, 40% reported to not even having considered giving up smoking before they actually made the attempt. Of 809 former and current snus users 48% did not plan, and 44% did not consider quitting in advance. Smokers and ex-smokers were more likely to remain smoke-free for at least six months if the attempt was unplanned (sex and age adjusted OR=2.6; 95% CI=1.7-3.8). When dividing the smoking quit attempts into considered versus not considered the advantage of the spontaneous attempts remained (adjusted OR=1.9; CI=1.3-2.9). The corresponding analyses of snus use quitting showed similar advantages for the unplanned and the not considered quit attempts.

Conclusions:

In Sweden, a considerable proportion of the attempts to quit smoking, as well as to quit using snus, are made without prior consideration or planning. Spontaneous quit attempts appear to have a greater chance of long-term success than those preceded by consideration or planning.

Keywords: Smoking cessation, smokeless tobacco, unplanned, Sweden.