Individual, Social and Psychological Characteristics of Smoking Cessation Behaviors: A Systematic Review

Abstract

About two thirds of active smokers want to quit smoking, yet not many people finally succeed in smoking cessation. Smoking cessation involve complex behaviors associated with individual, social and psychological characteristics as the key factors. Our objective is to review the studies about smoking cessation behavior correlated issues in order to find effective interventions of smoking cessation program. Terms and keywords pertinent to individual, social and psychological characteristics of smoking cessation behavior were used in a search of the electronic databases. Searches were limited to English language, included papers were: a) had clearly report the predictor variables related to smoking cessation behaviors, b) exclusively represent nation/s of study population, c) the time frame for the analysis was limited from 1998 to 2018. A result of 116 individual studies were retrieved at first and reviewed. After further inspection of references from the collected studies, 9 studies were approximately selected that met all inclusion criteria. The final studies consisted of five cross-sectional study and four cohort studies, conducted from different countries. There were several characteristics related to smoking cessation behavior including on levels of nicotine dependence, self-efficacy, smoking restriction and involve other smokers environment, motivation and educational background. Adjusted interventions due to those specific behaviors are needed in order to make more effective smoking cessation programs. Therefore, this study may provide new perspective for encouraged to decrease the amount of smokers worldwide through smoking cessation program.