Participants should be aware of the following financial/non-financial relationships: . Dania Bahdila, BDS, MSD, CAGS: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
Abstract: Objectives: Little is known about Arab youth smoking cessation (SC) behaviors and their interplay with cessation help. We aimed to (1) describe SC behaviors including quit intention, quit attempts and future continuity and (2) test whether being exposed to either professional or social help has a larger effect size on SC behaviors than the receipt of neither.
Methods: We used data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (2010-2018). Using surveys from 15 Arab countries of schoolchildren aged 12 to 16, we calculated prevalence of SC behaviors and cessation help. We used a multilevel model to estimate the association between SC behaviors and cessation help, adjusted for sex, age, household smoke exposure, cigarettes smoked per day, perceived difficulty of quitting, being taught the dangers of tobacco in school, survey year, and year of WHO FCTC ratification.
Results: 69.6% of children want to quit smoking and 59.5% tried to quit the past year. However, 48.3% expressed the decision to continue smoking. Most smokers received help to quit from social circles (56.7%) and 13.3% received professional help. Overall, the strength of the association for quit intention was larger for receiving professional help (OR 3.18, 95%CI 1.83-5.52) than social circles (OR 1.80, 95%CI 1.37-2.40). Receiving both, professional and social help demonstrated a larger association with quit attempts than receiving social help only.
Conclusion: Receiving SC help from either professional sources or social circles were associated with positive SC behaviors. Healthcare providers and caregivers should engage in youth SC counseling to facilitate a successful quit.
