Frequency of RE-smoking and related factors of individuals who have stopped smoking for one YEAR or more by applying to the smoking cessation polyclinics

Cigarettes are the only legal substance that has killed many of its users. It causes an average of six million deaths a year, most of which are premature deaths. Six hundred thousand of these six million deaths occur in passive smokers. Smoking causes disability and death due to chronic non-communicable diseases. At the same time, it causes an increase in the risk of death due to infectious diseases (1). More than 80% of the world's 1.3 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries. The main cause of death, disease and impoverishment in these countries is smoking. The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats facing the world (2). Cigarette is the most widely used among tobacco and tobacco products and is an important problem threatening public health (3). It is expected that smoking-related deaths will cause 50% more than the deaths caused by the HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) epidemic in 2015 and will be responsible for approximately 10% of all deaths in 2030. It is estimated that it will decrease by 9%, but will increase 100% in developing countries and reach 8.3 million deaths (4). Turkey is among the countries with high smoking rates (5). In our country, more than half of smokers (55.1%) consider quitting smoking (6). The aim of our study is to determine the frequency of re-starting smoking and the factors associated with re-starting after quitting smoking for at least one year in outpatients who applied to Dokuz Eylül University Family Medicine smoking cessation outpatient clinic between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2019. This study, which was planned in a cross-sectional analytical study model, included 611 outpatients who applied to the Dokuz Eylül University Family Medicine smoking cessation outpatient clinic between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2019. In the study, the data collection form prepared by the researchers and the Fagerstrom Nicotine Dependence Test (FNBT) result at the time of application to the smoking cessation outpatient clinic were used to quit smoking. It was observed that 56% of the participants who quit smoking for one year or longer started smoking again. It has been observed that the presence of children in the house where they live affects not starting again after quitting smoking (p:0.016). It was observed that the patients who were followed up were more successful in the continuation period after quitting smoking than those who were not followed up at all (p:0.034). It was observed that the mean score of support they received from the smoking cessation outpatient clinic was higher in those who did not start smoking (p:0.01).