Smoking rates and the level of readiness to quit in individuals over 18 years old admitted to the Akdeniz University Hospital Family Medicine outpatient clinic

Objective: In this study, we aimed to determine smoking and tobacco addiction status, thoughts about smoking cessation and levels of readiness to quit in patients over 18 years of age. Method: The study included 350 patients, aged 18 years and over, who agreed to participate and were accessible to the research assistants of Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. It is a cross-sectional and descriptive study. In this study, smoking rates and the levels of readiness to quit questionnaire were used in the patients aged 18 and over who applied to Akdeniz University Faculty of Medicine Family Medicine Outpatient Clinic and the questionnaire adapted from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey conducted in Turkey in 2012. The questionnaire was filled with face to face interview technique and dependency levels of participants were determined according to Fagerstrom Nicotine Addiction Test. Data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22 program. In the evaluation of the data, mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive analysis and Chi-square test was used for categorical data analysis. P <0.05 was considered significant. Result: A total of 350 participants, 214 (61.1%) male and 136 (38.9%) female, participated in the study. 131 (37,4%) of the participants stated that they had never used tobacco products in their lives, 95 (27,2%) were still using tobacco every day, 6 people (1.7%) were still using tobacco occasionally, 118 (33,7) stated that they had used it in the past. According to the number of cigarettes smoked currently, 32 people (31.7%) out of 101 currently using tobacco, used less than 10 cigarettes per day, 48 people used (47.5%) 11-20 pieces, 6 people (5.9%) used 21-30 pieces and 15 people (14.9%) used 31 cigarettes and more. Fifty three point two percent (n= 116) of the participants who are currently using tobacco started tobacco between 15-20 years of age. All of the daily tobacco users used cigarette as a tobacco product and 84.2% of them used tobacco for a total of 7 years or more. Sixty six point three percent of the smokers stated that they were addicted to tobacco and 32.3% were very low dependent according to the Fagerstrom Nicotine Addiction Test score. Fifty three percent of the participants stated that their desire to quit is high and 48.5% have high motivation to quit. Ninety five point eight percent of the participants who quit smoking stated that they quit without help and 61.0% of them stated that health problems were effective when quitting. Conclusion: In this study, the smoking rates of the participants and the levels of readiness to quit were determined and the factors affecting them were compared. Smoking is an important public health problem that threatens the health of society. In order to prevent this serious problem, WHO published the MPOWER report, which contains six key strategies, and gave countries the road map of what should be done to combat tobacco. According to WHO's 2013 report, Turkey is the first country to implement the tobacco control plan. However, tobacco use rates are still high in our country. More efforts should be made to support smokers to quit and about the harms of smoking topic. Family physicians have an important role in smoking cessation. Family physicians should ask the patients about their smoking status in every visit and advise smokers to quit, especially those with health problems and pregnant women and inform about effective smoking cessation methods (pharmacotherapy, counseling / advice). Starting smoking at an early age shows that adolescents are an important risk group for smoking dependence. For this reason, at least as much as the success achieved in smoking cessation, smoking is never to be tried should become a topic to be emphasized. Key Words: Tobacco Dependence, Fagerström Nicotine Dependence Test, Quitting Smoking