Aim: To examine the role of sociodemographic factors as predictors of sustained smoking cessation for the population who volunteer to participate in intervention programmes.
Method: Data for the 3575 smokers who participated in the CEASE (collaborative European anti-smoking evaluation) trial, a European multicentred study that used transdermal nicotine patches as an adjunct to smoking cessation in the chest clinic, were analysed. The effects of age, sex, smoking habit, socioeconomic status (housing conditions, education, and employment), disease, smoking habits of relatives, and baseline markers of tobacco use on sustained smoking cessation (self-reported abstinence and expired carbon monoxide < 10 parts per million) were assessed using logistic regression modelling (odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI)).
Results: 477/3575 smokers were sustained abstainers one year after the intervention (overall success rate 13.3%). In the univariable logistic regression models an effect of active treatment on smoking cessation was observed (OR 1.50, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.96), and additional effects on outcome were found for age (OR 1.02, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.03), sex (men v women: OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.68), housing conditions (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.25 to 1.65), current respiratory (OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.92) or cardiac disease (OR 0.46, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.75), and markers of tobacco use (cigarettes per day: OR 0.79, 95% CI 0.69 to 0.90; expired carbon monoxide: OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97 to 0.99). Education and employment did not have a significant effect on the outcome. The effect of the variables associated with success in smoking cessation persisted after adjustment for covariates.
Conclusion: Age, sex, and housing conditions have a major effect on smoking cessation in European smokers participating in smoking cessation programmes.