The short period effects of “smoke-free workplaces law” on the cigarette smoking among workers in Kayseri, Turkey

Background : Several methods are used to prevent smoking. One important of them is the legislation about smoke-free workplace. In Turkey, a law prohibiting smoking in the enclosed public and private offices introduced on May 19,2008. After this legislation, it is necessary that workers go out of workplace if they want to smoking. It is thought that, this difficulty may be dissuasive for workers. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether the law is effective in this short period or not on change the smoking behaviors among workers.
Methods : This study was conducted among 868 workers who work four public and four private workplaces at Kayseri, a city in Central Anatolia, Turkey. A pre-prepared questionnaire was applied face-to-face with workers in the second week of August 2008.
Results: Although 28.9% of study population was against to the new smoke-free law, 61.2% supported the new smoke-free law and 7.5% suggested to take precautions more hardly.
The rate of current smoker was 37.7% and 17.2% had gave up smoking. Eleven participants gave up smoking during last three months.  Five subjects of them reported the new smoke-free law as a cause to stop smoking.
54.1% of smoker reported that the number of cigarettes smoked at workplace in a day decreased since the new smoke-free law had been put into practice. On the other hand, the number of cigarette did not change in 38.2% and increased in 7.6%. The mean number of cigarettes smoked in a day at workplace decreased from 10.8 ± 6.8 to 8.1 ± 6.9.
After the new smoke-free law had been put into practice, the number of cigarette smoked during whole day decreased in 43.4% of smoker and did not change in 47.7% and increased in 8.9%.  The mean number of cigarette smoked during whole day decreased from 15.6 ± 8.5 to 13.0 ± 8.9.
Conclusion: Even tough its implementation was three months ago, new smoke-free law was found effective to decrease the mean number of cigarettes smoked per day of workers in workplaces and also in the whole day.