[Smoking related behaviours in Izmir]

The aim of the study is to determine the people's smoking related behaviours, using tobacco products except cigarette and characteristics about second hand smoke in Izmir.

Questionnaire including 47 questions was performed to 600 people, who were selected by Turkey Statistics Instutition to present population of Izmir.

53.7% of participants were female and 46.3% was male; the mean age was 41.5 ± 15.6. 232 (39%) were smoking, 257 (42%) never smoked and 111 (19%) quited smoking. The average age for a new smoker is 18.7 ± 6.6; men start smoking earlier than women statistically (p= 0.0001). 10.7% of participants were using tobacco products except cigarette. The smoke cessation percentage of women was statistically significantly higher than men(p= 0.006). 70.7% of active smokers were thinking about quitting.

The frequency of smoking was higher than Turkey's avarage in Izmir. The mean age of starting smoking was below 18. There must be extra effort for preventing women and under 18 age who are the targets of tobacco industry from smoking. Use of tobacco products except cigarette, especially water pipe may be an emerging problem for men, high education level and under age of 35 population. Although most of the participants know about their rights of protection from smoke and the harms of second hand smoke, it is worrying to see that children have to face second hand smoke in special ownerships. Most of the smokers think to quit smoking and use medical methods for quitting. The people who think about quitting should be guided to smoking cessation clinics; by this way, the more we use scientific methods for quitting, the more we get high quit rates of smoking.