Smoking Cessation among Italian Adults: Attempts, Intentions, and Use of Assistance

Over the past few decades in Italy, the prevalence of smoking has been steadily decreasing among males and stable among females. Smoking reached its lowest level of 23.5% (27.9% among males and 19.3% among females) in 2007. However, little is known about the individuals who continue to smoke in terms of their previous quit attempts or future intentions. The objectives of this study were to examine previous cessation attempts, future intentions to quit, and use of pharmacotherapy during a quit attempt among Italian adult smokers. The data for this study were collected as part of six Italian tobacco surveys conducted between the years 2002 and 2007 on a total of 4,927 smokers aged 18 years who were randomly selected to be representative of the population. The prevalence of ever having made a quit attempt was 38% and varied significantly with age, sex, education, and smoking intensity. Only 9.6% of smokers had an intention to quit in the next 6 months and only smoking intensity was related to intention to quit. Similarly, few smokers have used pharmacotherapy during any previous quit attempt: 9.4% overall and use varied positively with smoking intensity. These results suggest that, compared to smokers in the U.S., fewer Italian smokers have ever made an attempt at cessation, have an intention to quit in the near future, and have tried pharmacotherapy during a quit attempt. During the presentation, the potential reasons for the differences between Italy and the U.S. (as well as other European nations) will be discussed.