Smoking cessation among civil servants in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Introduction: Tobacco is one of the main causes of preventable deaths. Today, many people have stopped smoking, but its prevalence is still above expected. The knowledge about the factors associated with smoking cessation is important for policy makers but, in developing countries, this literature is scarce.

Objective: To evaluate the association between smoking cessation and socio-economic and demographic factors, injury and habits related to health and tobacco behavior characteristics, using cross-sectional data from an occupational cohort. Methods: The study population was composed by civil servants working at a university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Pró-Saúde Study) who were smokers or had smoked once at phase 1 of the study (N=1,546). Successful quitters were defined as those who have smoked at least 100 cigarettes in life and have been a non-smoker for at least one year. Explanatory variables considered were: age, gender, marital status, education, income, race/ethnicity, self-rated health, physical morbidity, hospitalization, common mental disorders (CMD), body mass index (BMI), physical activity, alcohol consumption, fruits/vegetables/fried food consumption, smokers companionship, number of cigarettes smoked/day and age at first cigarette. Prevalence ratios between explanatory variables and smoking cessation have been estimated by generalized linear model with Poisson distribution.

Results: Smoking cessation prevalence was 42.6%. Ajusted model showed that smoking cessation was positively associated to being older, married, more educated, absence of CMD, higher BMI, physical activity practice, consumption of fruits at least once a week and fried food least than daily, no smokers companionship and consumption less than 10 cigarettes/day.

Conclusion: To know successful quitters characteristics allows the creation and/or the strengthening of politics reported to groups with greater difficulty to stop. Future analysis based on longitudinal data will allow a better understanding of smoking cessation related factors at developing countries.