There is good evidence that the later a person starts smoking, the easier quitting will be. For those who have smoked 5. Think about the last 30 days. How long ago did you smoke your last cigarette 8. It is also important to monitor predictors of quitting.
Smokers usually make several attempts to quit before they succeed.
Among former smokers, the time of abstinence from cigarettes is the most important indicator of the probability of relapse. Relapse is very high in the first few weeks after stopping smoking, but declines considerably thereafter. Tobacco control programs often aim to influence the behaviour of hard core smokers, so it is useful to monitor their prevalence in the population. There are a number of ways of identifying such smokers. One approach is to determine how many smokers have never thought about quitting, have never tried to quit, and have no intention of doing so in the foreseeable future.