DESIGN: Use of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project surveys of smokers, using the 2007 survey wave (or later, where necessary).
SETTINGS: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand, United Kingdom, Uruguay and United States.
PARTICIPANTS: Samples of smokers from 15 countries.
MEASUREMENTS: Self-report on use of cessation aids and on visits to health professionals and provision of cessation advice during the visits.
FINDINGS: Prevalence of quit attempts in the last year varied from less than 20% to more than 50% across countries. Similarly, smokers varied greatly in reporting visiting health professionals in the last year (<20% to over 70%), and among those who did, provision of advice to quit also varied greatly. There was also marked variability in the levels and types of help reported. Use of medication was generally more common than use of behavioural support, except where medications are not readily available.
CONCLUSIONS: There is wide variation across countries in rates of attempts to stop smoking and use of assistance with higher overall use of medication than behavioural support. There is also wide variation in the provision of brief advice to stop by health professionals.
METHODS: Using 2007-2009 data from the GYTS, subjects from 6 countries were used to assess current smokers' odds of reporting time to first cigarette or craving positive (TTFC/C+) by the number of cigarette smoking days per month (DPM) and the number of cigarettes smoked per day (CPD).
RESULTS: The percentage of GYTS smokers who reported TTFC/C+ ranged from 58.0% to 69.7%. Compared with students who smoked on 1-2 DPM, those who smoked on 3-9 DPM had 3 times the adjusted odds of reporting TTFC/C+. The adjusted odds of reporting TTFC/C+ were 3 to 7 times higher among those who smoked 10-29 DPM and 6 to 20 times higher among daily smokers. Similarly, the adjusted odds of TTFC/C+ were 3-6 times higher among those who smoked 2-5 CPD and 6 to 20 times higher among those who smoked >6 CPD, compared to those who smoked <1 CPD.
CONCLUSION: Associations of TTFC/C+ prevalence with both frequency and intensity of cigarette smoking provide a construct validation of the GYTS question used to assess respondents' TTFC/C status.