Association between age, gender and reasons for smoking cessation

To contribute to improved programs for smoking cessation, the authors wanted to assess the relationships between age, gender and ex-smokers' quitting reasons and examine predictors of the most commonly reported quitting reasons.

A questionnaire was mailed to 11,919 subjects in Akershus County, Norway. Among the 7,697 respondents (65%), self-reported reasons for smoking cessation in 1,715 ex-smokers were analysed. Using cross-tables and multivariate logistic regression, associations between age, gender, and reported quitting reasons were examined.

Men were more likely to have stopped smoking to improve physical fitness, or out of consideration for other family members than the children, and less likely to have quit out of consideration for their own children, or in solidarity with a spouse that stopped smoking. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, age was a predictor of all seven most common reasons to quit smoking. Gender, education, and the physical component of health status each predicted three of the seven quitting reasons.

In the study sample, differences in smoking cessation behavior and reported quitting reasons were found according to both age and gender. Smoking cessation programs should be tailored to the relevant target groups, including stratification according to age and gender.