Cigarette smoking and stages of change among men and women in Kiev, Ukraine

Background: Assisting current smokers to progress towards stopping smoking entails identifying their readiness to stop and understanding the factors that may influence their readiness. Relations were established between certain predictor variables (intensity of smoking, age at initiation, duration of smoking, and gender) and stages of readiness to change smoking behaviour in Kiev, Ukraine. Methods: Analysis was based on a convenient sample of 536 current smokers who completed a stages-of-change questionnaire in a public square in the centre of Kiev's business district, between 22 and 25 July 2000. Frequency distributions, odds ratios, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used to summarize and describe the data. Tests of significance were based on the 0.05 level. Results: The majority of participants (56.1%) were categorized as precontemplative. Less than 20% of the subjects were prepared for action to change smoking behaviour. Later age at smoking initiation was associated with fewer cigarettes smoked per day. Females were more likely then males to seriously consider cutting down the number of cigarettes they smoked. However, males were more likely to have intentionally quit smoking for at least one day within the past year. Conclusion: Information on stages of readiness to stop smoking provided by this study may be useful for improving the effectiveness of smoking cessation programmes in Kiev.