Quitting: In male versus female users of different types of tobacco at 8 months postintervention in a community setting

Background: North-East India shows a very high prevalence of tobacco use. Very little is known about the factors that affects tobacco cessation. Materials and Methods: Community-based tobacco cessation counseling was provided and follow-up visits were done until 8 months. Retrospective analysis was done on data set collected during the period of 2009-2010. Both sexes of age >15 years with mild, moderate and severe category of tobacco addiction and giving consent for the intervention were included in the study. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test were used to see the significance differences among categories. Results: Totally, 800 tobacco users were intervened and followed-up. Male:female ratio of tobacco use was 4.3:1. Against one female, 27 male smokers were found. At 8 months postintervention, maximum number of quit rate was amongst the users of smokeless tobacco (52%) irrespective of their sex as well as in both sexes. The difference in quit rates between female smokeless tobacco users and female smokers was found statistically significant. No female smokers quitted tobacco whereas 46.6% male smokers quitted tobacco. Conclusion: Quit rate in females with different types of tobacco use habits differ significantly. There is an alarming disparity in the quit rates of male versus female smokers which needs further research. Capacity development of the cessation service providers toward the liberal use of nicotine replacement therapy and other chemo interventions in addition to counseling should be further facilitated.