A Study on the Status of Indoor Smoking Rooms and Compliance with Indoor Smoke-free Policy in Some Public Facilities in the Seoul Metropolitan area and the Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do Province Area

Objectives: The purposes of this study were to investigate the installation rates and status of indoor smoking rooms in public facilities and to determine the level of compliance level with smoke-free policies in accordance with the National Health Promotion Act. Methods: A visiting survey was conducted on 1,206 public facilities in the Seoul Metropolitan Area and the Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do Province area. Researchers selected public facilities such as bars, coffee houses, and internet cafes using convenient sampling. They visited without prior notice, checked the existence of indoor smoking rooms, and recorded their status. Results: Internet cafes (110/116) had the highest installation rate of indoor smoking rooms, followed by bowling clubs (17/19) and billiard rooms (87/100). Depending on the type of business, 50-88% of smoking rooms were not completely enclosed. Coin karaoke rooms showed the least inadequacy in this regard. In addition, out of 512 smoking rooms, in 33% (n = 169) smoking indoors was observed in non-smoking areas. Only 9% of public facilities were in full compliance with the indoor smoke-free regulation. Conclusions: It was found that most of the public facilities with indoor smoking rooms did not comply with the smoke-free policy, and smoking was still observed inside some facilities. Therefore, there is a need for a policy that prohibits indoor smoking rooms completely.N