Pukyong National University

Teen-smokers should try to quit smoking at least once, even if they fail

- research result from prof. Her Won-Bin, and prof. Oh Young-Sam's team at PKNU draws attention from the academia

△ Prof. Her Won-Bin, prof. Oh Young-Sam and prof. Jeong Hye-Jin

Among the teen-smokers, those who try to quit smoking at least once had a significantly lower levels of addiction to nicotine than the group who do not try.

This is the result of a study conducted by a joint research team led by professors Her Won-Bin and Oh Young-Sam from the department of social welfare at Pukyong National University and professor Jeong Hye-Jin from the department of public administration at Busan National University through a survey of 349 teen-smokers under the age of 18 who had smoking experience.

The research team utilized an empirical study targeting Korean teenagers based on the research results (2019) of the health and tobacco control division of California, USA that smokers who did not try to quit smoking before the age of 26 are likely to remain smokers for life.

As a result of collecting sample data in the form of a questionnaire survey, the average age of the respondents was about 16 years old, and the average duration of smoking was 2.6 years. The research team analyzed them by dividing them into a group that had tried to quit smoking and a group that had not tried.

As a result of their study, 69% of the non-trial group who had never tried to quit smoking were male adolescents, which was significantly higher than the attempt group. Teens who did not go to school were more likely to be in the group who had tried to quit smoking at least once. The research team speculated that the reason for the large number of out-of-school youth in the trial group was economic factors or the effect of the youth center's anti-smoking program.

The research team suggested, "Research results show that nicotine addiction increases if you do not try to quit smoking even once," and added, "For teenagers to be successful in quitting smoking in the long term, even if they fail, they should try to quit smoking as soon as possible, practice quitting and build up the stamina to quit."

They said, "We expect that the results of this study will help design and develop smoking cessation programs that consider smoking-related factors and characteristics of each group."

The paper 「Examining Predictors of Nicotine Dependence in Korean Adolescents: comparing ever quitters and never quitters」 containing the results of this study was introduced in an international journal, <Journal of psychoactive drugs>.