Gender specific factors associated with having stopped smoking among in-school adolescents in Ukraine: results from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey 2005

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of cigarette smoking in Ukraine is different between genders and is among the highest in the world. There is need to identify gender-specific factors that are associated with having stopped smoking among adolescents. FINDINGS: We used data from the Ukraine Global Youth Tobacco Survey 2005. We carried out a backward stepwise logistic regression analysis with having stopped smoking as the outcome. Altogether, 2800 adolescents reported having ever smoked cigarettes. Overall 64.1% (63.4% male, and 65.5% female) adolescents reported having stopped smoking. Male adolescents who stated that smoking decreases body weight were 25% more likely, while female adolescents were 9% less likely to stop smoking. While male adolescents who received support on how to stop smoking from a family member were 7% less likely, female adolescents were 60% more likely to stop smoking. Furthermore, while male adolescents who received a lecture on the harmful effects of smoking were 10% less likely, female adolescents were 9% more likely to stop smoking. Finally both male and female adolescents who were sure or most probably that they would not smoke a cigarette offered to them by their best friends were more likely, and those adolescents who were sure that smoking is harmful to health were less likely to stop smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Our study has identified some factors that are associated with having quit smoking that are gender-specific. We believe public health programs targeting adolescent smoking should consider these factors in their design and implementation of gender sensitive interventions.