[Study on the willingness to quit smoking and its influencing factors among current smokers in rural areas in China].

Objective

To study the willingness of current smokers to quit smoking in rural areas and related factors to provide a reference for tobacco control.

Methods

The data were collected from the China Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance in 2018. A multi-stage stratified cluster sampling was used to select 184 509 residents (≥18 years old); among the residents, 10 241 current smokers in rural areas were included in the study. χ2/F test was used to analyze the factors such as willingness to quit smoking and demographic information, tobacco use, cognition of tobacco-related hazard knowledge, the prevalence of chronic diseases, and other factors. Unconditional multifactor logistic regression analysis was used in multivariate analysis.

Results

A total of 3 453 (37.46%) considered quitting smoking in the next 12 months. Logistic regression analysis showed that occasional smokers were more willing to quit smoking than daily smokers (OR=0.693, 95%CI: 0.494-0.971), and those who smoked less than 1 pack per day were more willing to quit than those who smoked 1 pack or more per day (OR=0.628,95%CI: 0.511-0.771), those who had quit smoking within 12 months were more willing to quit than those who had not quit within 12 months (OR=0.438, 95%CI: 0.357-0.537), and those with high awareness of tobacco hazards were more willing to quit smoking (OR=1.056, 95%CI: 1.028-1.086). The differences were statistically significant (P<0.05).

Conclusions

The willingness of current smokers in rural areas to quit smoking is related to the smoking situation, smoking intensity, previous smoking cession experience, and knowledge of the specific health effects of smoking. It suggests that health education should be strengthened through more efficient health communication methods in rural areas and provide brief smoking cessation interventions to improve rural smokers' willingness to quit smoking.