Attitudes towards cessation and smoking ban law enforcement in Greece

Background The smoking ban law has been successfully implemented in Greece since 2019, however data on smoking status post implementation and views on the measures for the smoking ban law enforcement do not yet exist. Objective Our study aimed to estimate smoking status in Greece and assess attitudes towards cessation and views on smoking ban law implementation. Methods The sample was representative of the adult Greek population according to sex and age based on national census data. Participants reported their smoking status, attitudes towards cessation and views on smoking ban law enforcement. Data collection took place on February 2020 using computer assisted telephone interviewing by Kapa Research. Differences between groups were assessed with chi-squared tests. Analysis was performed in STATA 13. Results A total of 1976 adults participated in the study. Smoking prevalence was 28%. Highly statistically significant differences between sexes were observed regarding history of smoking cessation, more frequent in men (67%) than in women (59%) (p=0.03). Additionally, intention to quit smoking in the future was lower in women compared to men (48% vs 56%, respectively; p=0.08), while men had higher ex-smoking prevalence compared to women (36% vs 29%, respectively). Regarding the smoking ban law implementation, 75% of the population consider the measures for the smoking ban implementation positive; the percentage is highly statistically significantly different between smokers and non-smokers (53% vs 86%, respectively) (p<0.001). Conclusions Significant differences were observed between sexes regarding smoking status and attitudes towards cessation. About three-quarters of the adult Greek population consider positive the measures of the smoking ban enforcement.