To Explore Factors Affecting on Ever Quit-smoking Behavior Among Male Smoking Employees : 50 Workplaces in Central Taiwan as an Example

[[abstract]]This study, investigating the current status of tobacco damages done to the smoking employees of fifty(50) workplaces in central Taiwan, was conducted by the ?Consultation Center of Tobacco Damage Control in Workplaces? jointly formed by the Hungkuang University, the Environmental, Safety and Health Technology Development Center and the Kuang Tien General Hospital entrusted by the Bureau of Health Promotion, National Health Commission. It was intended to understand how the male smoker-employees in workplaces looked at the tobacco damages and what were their individual attitudes. What were the factors that had anything to do with ever quit-smoking male employees in workplaces? Could non-smoking policy in workplaces help the male smoker-employees try to quit smoking? And, was there any connection among stages of change, FTND(the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence) and the ever quit-smoking male employees in workplaces? Consequently, variances were found according to personal characteristics whether they were ever quitters among the male smoking employees in workplaces. There were differences in the awareness of tobacco damages, score given to smoking attitude and whether they had previously quit among the male smoking employees in workplaces. The policy of non-smoking workplace or otherwise did not affect the male smoking employees in workplaces whether they had ever quit or not. The workplace male smokers had a gradually increased ratio among those ever quit-smokers when they were passing by the stages of pre-contemplation, contemplation and preparation. Among them, the male smokers at the stage of preparation might rank the highest ever quit-smoking number. The male ever quit-smokers in workplaces varied in nicotine dependence. The predictive elements that influenced the workplace male smoker-employees whether they had given up smoking before or not were domicile origin, age, workplace non-smoking attitude, stage of changes and nicotine dependence. This study suggests that the legislature should have passed the policy concerned to outlaw smoking comprehensively in consideration of the health right and interest of primary non-smoking workers and the effect taken in non-smoking workplaces to promote the overall national health. Moreover, the education of and counseling on business executives should be proceeded prior to the execution of tobacco damages preventive policy for much greater renders with less efforts. Besides, domestic researches of tobacco prevention had locked on youths and teenagers mostly but comparatively less, on workplace personnel. In fact, it is not only necessary to enforce an overall non-smoking policy on campus and surroundings to protect the youths and teenagers from the threatening tobacco damages, the relevant measures are likewise needed in order to safeguard the right of non-smokers to reject the tobacco fume. It is recommended that the follow-up researchers may explore the quitting motives of smoker-employees to clarify more specifically the way protecting the workplaces from tobacco damages