Nine out of 10 smokers in Estonia would like to kick the habit - survey

Photo: Panther Media/Scanpix

Nine out of 10 smokers in Estonia are thinking about giving it up and eight have taken a decisive step to kick the habit, it appears from the latest tobacco-themed study commissioned by the National Institute for Health Development (TAI) and the Social Affairs Ministry.

The study found that the main reasons for giving up smoking are the deterioration of one's own or a close one's health and important changes in life such as the birth of a child, TAI said.

TAI expert Tiiu Harm said the objective of the study was to determine Estonians' smoking habits, their awareness of the health impact of this habit and principal motives for giving it up. «The findings of the survey show that Estonians think about their own and their close ones' health and take essential steps to get free from smoking,» she said.

According to the survey, concern about one's own or other people's health is one of the main reasons for giving up smoking: deteriorating health was named as a good reason to drop the habit by 57 percent of smokers, 38 percent named the harmful effect of their smoking on the health of their close ones, and 34 percent said they do not want to harm other non-smokers.

A second major motivator is a significant change in life, such as the birth of a child or finding a new life companion,named by 54 percent of respondents.

Other reasons are the ever rising price of tobacco products, which matters to 36 percent of smokers, and realization that smoking no longer fits into one's lifestyle which was named by 35 percent of smokers.

It appears from the study that 87 percent of smokers have thought about quitting and 78 percent already have taken steps to give it up. However, the first attempt to drop the habit does not always succeed - 60 percent of smokers have tried to quit more than once.

The survey was conducted by Turu-uuringute AS pollsters by interviewing 1,000 people aged 15-74.