7.1 Quitting activity
Show / hide chapter menu
In a 2007 survey of Australians aged 14 years and over, 4.3 million ex-smokers (25.1% of all Australians) outnumbered 3.1 million daily and weekly smokers (17.9%).7
Surveys on smoking status have been undertaken every year in the state of Victoria since 1984.8 There has been a substantial increase in the proportion of people who have successfully quit over the past two decades. Among people who had ever smoked in Victoria in 1984, the percentage of ex-smokers was 42%.9 By 2007, 61% of ever-smokers had quit.10
Overall quit rates are a function of the percentage of smokers who make an attempt to quit, and the success rate among those who tried to quit.11
The Victorian annual surveys on smoking status have also monitored attempts of current smokers to quit in the previous 12 months, and proportions that have ever made a quit attempt. The percentage of regular smokers who have ever made a quit attempt was 81% in 2005.2 The proportion of regular smokers who had made multiple (three or more) attempts to quit increased from 36% of regular smokers in 1998 to 43% in 2005.2 Between 2000 and 2005 about two-thirds of current smokers (regular and occasional) had attempted to quit.2 While these statistics show a very high level of quitting activity among smokers, the rate of successful quitting is low because of the high relapse rate. Over the five-year period (2000–2005), 70% of Victorian smokers who had tried to quit were unsuccessful, and 30% were able to quit successfully.2 Among those unsuccessful, 21% had stopped for less than a week while almost two-thirds (65%) had stopped for less than three months.2
In a 2004 national survey, 75% of the respondents who had reported smoking in the previous 12 months said they had tried to change their smoking behaviour in the past year. Twenty-six percent reported they had tried to quit without success, and 25% had given up smoking for more than one month.12 Trying to reduce the amount smoked per day was another common change in behaviour.
Another index of quitting potential is to ask smokers about their intention to make a quit attempt in the future. In 1983–84 approximately 25% of Victorian smokers said that they were very likely to quit within the next three months.13 More recent data, from 2005, indicated that 54% of Victorian smokers were intending to quit within the next six months.14
Although success in quitting is clearly difficult for many, even the small percentage of smokers who quit, when seen at a population level, represents substantial progress. Evaluation of the National Tobacco Campaign showed a decline in smoking prevalence of 1.4% in the first six months of the campaign, which represented about 190,000 fewer smokers across the country.15
Copyright © 2012 The Cancer Council. All rights reserved.