Abstract
Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the raise of cigarette prices by KRW 2,000 at the beginning of 2015 on the change in smoking behavior among male office workers, and to analyze the correlation of various factors including their work behaviors and socio-economic factors with their smoking rate. Methods: In this research, a follow-up observation panel was constituted with 420 smokers as targets from among male office workers at a bank located in Daegu, South Korea. A cross-analysis and ANOVA analysis were carried out in order to examine whether changes in smoking status, amount of smoking, stop-smoking motivation, and reasons for smoking cessation failure after the passage of time since the cigarette price hike were statistically significant. The level of statistical significance was P < 0.05. Results: After the cigarette price hike, among the 420 smokers who were the target of the panel the rate of smoking cessation declined at the time-point of the survey to 15.5%, 12.4%, 8.5%, and 5.7% after one month, three months, six months, and 12 months, respectively. As a result of a follow-up observation of 65 smokers who stopped smoking immediately after the price hike, the actual non-smoking rate declined to 15.5%, 8.3%, 4.4%, and 3.1% after one month, three months, six months, and 12 months, respectively. One (1) year after the cigarette price hike, the non-smoking rate among the 420 smokers reached as low as 3.1% (13 persons). The most important reason for the failure of the attempts to quit smoking was stress for more than 60% of the smokers who attempted to stop. Conclusions: It seems that a powerful anti-smoking policy by the state targeting the nation's workers is necessary. For companies, mediation for workers' job stress can become a strategy for the success of non-smoking attempts. The government seems to require a practical policy to reduce the smoking rate by actively carrying out social, economic, and scientific research to come up with a reduction method for the cigarette hazard, an effective price hike policy, and other non-price policies.
