ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The smoking rate of Korean male workers is top in the world. To establish the effective smoking cessation strategy, we conducted a study to evaluate the factors associated with smoking and smoking cessation. METHODS: We surveyed 509 male workers in a university hospital about age, marital status, drinking, exercise level and checked their awareness and seriousness for diseases due to smoking, benefits from smoking cessation, motivation derived from massmedi and books and their will to quit smoking by self-administerd questionnaire. RESULTS: The significant factors associated with smoking cessation were higher education (OR=1.85, 95% CI 1.26-2.74), non-religion (OR=0.56, 95% CI 0.38-0.83), drinking (OR=0.40, 95% CI 0.27-0.61), awareness (OR=1.30, 95% CI OR=1.03-3.25) and seriousness (OR=1.29, 95% CI 1.19-1.39) for smoking related disease, benefit (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.16-1.27), and barrier (OR=0.78, 95% CI 0.74-0.83), motivation (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.12-1.30), and the will to quit smoking (OR=1.70, 95% CI 1.56-1.85). CONCLUSION: This study suggested that effective smoking cessation program should be based on awareness and seriousness due to smoking related diseases, health benefit and barrier to quitting smoking, company's support, the individual's will to quit and various motivation methods.