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Tailoring Tobacco Control: CHAID Decision-Tree Profiles of Ever Quit Attempts Among Current Smokers
Meryem Merve Ören Çelik1, Burcu Özkan1, Sevde Sancar2
1Department of Public Health, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Substance Use & Misuse
|July 29, 2026
Summary
Smokers with high motivation and financial burden were most likely to attempt quitting. Understanding these profiles can improve smoking cessation interventions and messaging.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Behavioral Science
- Addiction Research
Background:
- Smoking cessation remains a global health priority.
- Understanding factors influencing quit attempts among current smokers is crucial for developing effective interventions.
- Previous research indicates psychosocial, economic, and motivational factors play a role in quit behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify distinct profiles of current smokers associated with having made a past quit attempt.
- To utilize Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) for transparent exploratory segmentation of smokers based on quit-attempt history.
- To explore the interplay of sociodemographic, motivational, and perceptual factors in relation to smoking cessation attempts.
Main Methods:
- Secondary analysis of a 2024 survey of 1,018 current smokers in three Turkish metropolitan areas.
- Application of CHAID decision-tree analysis to survey data including sociodemographics, nicotine dependence, motivation, perceived consequences, financial burden, beliefs, and cessation methods.
- Reporting of quit-attempt prevalence, gain, and index within identified terminal nodes.
Main Results:
- Overall, 41.0% of current smokers reported at least one lifetime quit attempt.
- CHAID segmentation identified interpretable profiles associated with quit attempts.
- Highest quit-attempt prevalence was observed in smokers with high motivation and high perceived financial burden (89.9%).
- Significant subgroups included those recognizing the need to quit but perceiving cognitive benefits of smoking (70.0%) and those using herbal remedies (76.5%).
Conclusions:
- Quit attempts among smokers are associated with motivation, perceived financial burden, and specific misperceptions about smoking.
- Interpretable decision-tree segmentation can identify key subgroups for targeted smoking cessation research and interventions.
- Findings suggest potential for tailored brief advice, evidence-based cessation support, cost-salient messaging, and myth correction strategies.
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