Smoking cessation in the last decade in an Italian prospective study

Background: Smoking trends in Italy have been addressed mainly by repeated cross-sectional surveys or retrospective studies. Objective: To prospectively assess cumulative incidence and determinants of smoking cessation among Italian smokers during the last decade. Methods: 1390 current smokers aged 20-46 years were identifi ed in 1998-2000 in two centres participating in ISAYA (Italian Study on Asthma in Young Adults): Verona in Northern Italy and Sassari in Sardinia. These subjects were contacted again in 2008-2009 and 684 answered a screening questionnaire; of note response percentage (49.2%) in current smokers was signifi cantly lower than that recorded among never and past smokers (57.0% and 53.9% respectively). After eliminating 56 subjects with missing or contradictory response on smoking habits, 628 subjects were left for the analysis. Results. After a follow-up period of 9.5±0.6 years (mean±SD) 219 subjects (34.9%) had stopped smoking. This proportion was similar in both sexes (35.7% in men, 33.9% in women) and was not signifi cantly affected by either birth cohort or occupation. Quit ratio was higher in Verona (37.4%) than in Sassari (30.4%) (p=0.082) and in people smoking 11-40 cigarettes/day at baseline (39.8%) than in people smoking 1-10 cigarettes/day (29.4%) (p=0.007). Asthma at baseline was associated with an increase in quit ratio (54.2% vs 34.1%; p=0.050), while nasal allergies and chronic bronchitis were not. Only smoking intensity was a significant predictor of smoking cessation in a multivariable logistic regression model. Conclusion. About one third of current smokers quitted smoking over a ten-year period. The main predictor of smoking cessation was smoking intensity