Effect of Gender and Age on Smoking Cessation Among Men and Women

This essay is a literature review proposal for a dissertation project on the question “effect of gender and age on smoking cessation among men and women”. It covers the public health issue of smoking along with the relationship of smoking patterns with the demographics of an individual.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Background......................................................................................................................................1
Methodology....................................................................................................................................2
a) Primary research......................................................................................................................2
b) Factors considered for drafting the questionnaire...................................................................2
c) Administering the questionnaire..............................................................................................2
d) Strengths and weaknesses of search strategy..........................................................................3
e) Key ethical issues....................................................................................................................3
Results..............................................................................................................................................3
Frequency distribution.................................................................................................................3
Cross tabulations..........................................................................................................................7
Frequency distribution and cross tabulation of age group.........................................................10
Findings & discussion....................................................................................................................11
Critical evaluation..........................................................................................................................12
Conclusions & recommendations..................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14

Introduction
This essay is a literature review proposal for a dissertation project on the question “effect of
gender and age on smoking cessation among men and women”. This essay intends to cover the
public health issue of smoking along with the relationship of smoking patterns with the
demographics of an individual.
This essay will have total of 6 chapters that includes background of the selected essay area,
methodology of the investigation, results acquired from SPSS tests conducting using smoking
data, findings and discussion section which will include the identified findings acquired from the
results, critical evaluation section which will include appraisal of decisions taken in this essay
and conclusion section; this section will include recommendations for policy changes in the
public health issue of smoking.
Background
This essay is focused to analyse the impact of age and gender on an individual on their will
to quit smoking. Considering this, the public issue which is selected in this essay is smoking.
Smoking is a practice which involves smoking cigarettes having tobacco which is drug that can
lead towards several lung diseases in a human (Prestwich, Kenworthy and Conner, 2017). The
topic of smoking is considered as important to be investigated as this habit leads to death of
million people every year. The practice of smoking involves drug consumption due to which it is
an addiction which is difficult to quit. This addiction of smoking cigarettes makes it an important
public health issue which has become a threat to today’s world (Goodchild, Nargis and
d'Espaignet, 2018).
The public health issue of smoking is analysed by various investigators before which can be
a base to this essay. According to World Health organisation (2020), tobacco kills more than 8
million people each year and 80% of the world’s tobacco users are low to middle classed people
(WHO’s factsheet about Tobacco, 2020). The practice of smoking is also regarded as a public
issue as the smoke dissolves in environment and yearly around 1.2 million people are being
exposed to second hand smoke. There are various initiatives from government of nations that
intends to lower down the consumption of tobacco as its results into lung cancer, throat cancer,
respiratory problems and many other diseases (Rasyid and Ahsan, 2020).
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According to NCBI (2020), people who have smoking addiction do not want any help to
quit (Why Won't Our Patients Stop Smoking? 2020). Every individual has their own reason to
smoke and there are various reasons due to which they do not want to quit and some people who
try to quit ends up having numerous difficulties (Suzuki and et.al., 2019).
There are few points and areas which seem to be interesting after analysing the above
background information about smoking. These areas include the reasons which restrict people
from quit smoking, harmful impacts of passive or second hand smoke and the influence of
demographics such as age, gender, living standards on the smoking habits of people (Davis and
et.al, 2019).
Methodology
a) Primary research
This is a type of investigation in which all the data is collected from primary sources and is
first-hand information. In this research, data is first collected through the way of survey,
interviews, observation, experiments etc. and then analysed using data analysis techniques
(Young and et.al., 2016).
b) Factors considered for drafting the questionnaire
The topic of the research was first analysed to identify the independent and dependent
variables. These variables were then used to identify the data which is required to be collected.
For instance, in the topic, the independent variable is age and gender, considering which first two
questions of the questionnaire is related to the sex and age of individuals. As the research area of
this essay is smoking, so the target respondents are the people which have smoking history or
currently smoke. In order to gain reliable data, the length, order and format of the questionnaire
is set in such a way that it will not take up much time of respondents and each question is quite
clear on its own so respondents will not tick the options randomly (Cleophas and Zwinderman,
2016).
The questionnaire was first tested to check in how many minutes, it can be filled and if any
issues can be faced while filling up the questionnaire form. Considering all the findings, final
questionnaire was developed.
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c) Administering the questionnaire
The total number of respondents for this research is 55, which is a small sample due to
which instead of distributing the questionnaires, each of the questionnaires were given to people
and as soon as the people finish up filling the questionnaire, they asked to return those. This
process eliminated the issue of high time consumption and there were no issues while
distributing or asking form filled up forms (Team, 2016).
d) Strengths and weaknesses of search strategy
The search strategy which is used in this research is based on the primary method in which
a survey was conducted using 55 individuals. There are few strengths and weaknesses in this
search strategy. The major strength of this strategy is that the information gained is a first hand
information which is not being used before; also, the question content was small due to which
the information which is gained by this strategy is highly reliable and normal (Landtblom, 2018).
There are few weaknesses of this search strategy also present. These weaknesses include,
as the number of respondents is only 55, there is a high possibility that the research results will
be biased. Also, the numbers of questions are only 5, due to which information access is limited.
e) Key ethical issues
Respondents were only asked about the general smoking pattern and preference as gaining
any personal information would have resulted into ethical issues (Leech, Barrett and Morgan,
2013).
Results
Frequency distribution
Frequency Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulativ
e Percent
Female 35 63,6 63,6 63,6
Male 20 36,4 36,4 100,0
Total 55 100,0 100,0
Gender
Valid
Figure 1: FD of Gender
Interpretation: from the above frequency distribution analysis, it has been seen that
among 55 respondents, 35 were females and 20 were females. This data provides the measures of
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central tendency information which states mean of this data is 27.5 along with which mode is
females as the recur highly than males.
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Figure 2: FD of Age
Interpretation: The above analysis represents the age of each respondents in the form of
continuous variable. The data assist in analysing that minimum frequency or the age of
respondents who is being surveyed is 18 and the maximum age is 88. Besides, MAX and MIN,
other MCT which can be analysed from above data is mode which states that the most recurring
age is 35 which means most people who were surveyed were 35 years old.
Figure 3: FD of Tried to quick smoking
Interpretation: The above frequency distribution is the analysis of respondents’
response about have they tried to quit smoking last year. The results table shows that out of 55,
only 16 have only tried to quick smoking and 39 out of them have not even tried yet which also
makes males as the mode in above evaluation.
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Figure 4: FD of How long have you been smoking
Interpretation: From the above evaluation, the MCT to consider are maximum and
minimum. The minimum period of continuous smoking is less than one year and the maximum
period for continuous smoking is 46 years. The mode of above frequency distribution is 0 which
means most of the people who were surveyed were new smokers and only are continuously
smoking for less than 1 year.
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Figure 5: FD of want to quit smoking
Interpretation: The above analysis shows the maximum of the entire variable is 48 and
minimum is 0. The mode of the above dataset is 0 which means most of people have opted for 0
or less than one year.
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Cross tabulations
Figure 6: Cross tabulation of Gender and Tried to quit smoking
Interpretation: The above results of cross tabulation and chi square tests shows that
among 35 females only 10 has tried to quit smoking and among 20 males, only 6 has tried to quit
smoking last year. The significance value of chi square is more than .05 which means there is no
association between the gender and willing of an individual to quit smoking.
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Figure 7: Cross tabulation of Gender and How long have you been smoking
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Interpretation: The results of above cross tabulation analysis shows that there is no
significant impact of gender on an individual’s pattern of smoking. Even the chi square and Phi
significance value is more than .05 which rejects the hypothesis that gender lays an impact on
years of continuous smoking.
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Figure 8: Cross tabulation of Gender and want to quit smoking
Interpretation: Similar to above two analysis, gender and want to quit smoking has no
association.
Frequency distribution and cross tabulation of age group
Figure 9: Frequency distribution of age group
Interpretation: The age of 55 respondents is now grouped into 3 categories which
provide the mean of 38.89 with a standard deviation of 13.74 which means average age of people
who were surveyed is 38.
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Figure 10: Cross tabulation of age group and want to quit smoking
Interpretation: The above analysis shows no impact of age on the want of quit smoking.
The difference in the frequencies of each age group is because of the different population in each
age group but still the age does have a slightly higher impact of people’s smoking preference
than their gender.
Findings & discussion
The results which are gained from SPSS test were not as they were expected. The reason
behind selecting the demographic variables was the consideration that age and gender of people
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may impact their smoking patterns, but no significant association was found between
independent and dependent variables. The similar researches carried out by others are different
as they involved higher number of independent variables and number of respondents.
The theories and frameworks similar to this conducted study involve the addiction and
health issues caused by smoking cigarettes. Due to non association between most of the
variables, few themes have emerged from the analysis. These themes include impact of lifestyle
on the will of tried to quit smoking and the impact of income status on the total number of
continuous smoking years. These themes are intended to be explored using correlation and
regression instead of using cross tabulation.
Critical evaluation
The process of critical appraisal is the examination of research in order to judge the
effectiveness, reliability and viability of the investigation. This process allows to appraise both
strengths and weaknesses of the findings which are gained from the research. The research we
intend to critical evaluated using the SPSS test of reliability and normality. These tests will be
used to critically appraise the data which is being collected for the public issue of smoking. In
order to critical appraise the aims, design, methods and results of the research; the limitations of
the research will be identified.
Variability and validity of a research refers to the trustworthiness of the results of the data.
On the other hand, generalizability is the phenomenon which is used for idealist of the research
results for general usage. There are various factors that impact the reliability and validity which
includes sample size, data collection method, length of the questionnaire, analysis style used and
measurements. For this particular research, the sample size is the most important factor which
can impact the validity of the entire research. Selecting 55 people among the millions of
population who smoke is not valid due to which the results have the high probability to be
biased.
Conclusions & recommendations
By carrying out above essay, it has been learned that public health issue such as smoking is
a sensitive issue and the reasons behind smoking is different for every individual. By
investigating through books and journals cannot provide the accurate results about the population
due to which it is important to conduct a primary research. There are few policies that can be
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used by public health administrators. According to the emerging themes, it has been
recommended that individual who wants to quit smoking must be given exposure to
rehabilitation centres so that their will can be turn into a success and the people who do not want
to quit smoking must be analysed to identify the reasons behind their denial of even trying to quit
smoking.
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References
Books and Journals
Cleophas, T. J. and Zwinderman, A. H., 2016. Linear Regression (Regression Coefficient,
Correlation Coefficient and Their Standard Errors). In Clinical Data Analysis on a
Pocket Calculator (pp. 45-50). Springer, Cham.
Davis, D.R. and et.al, 2019. Examining effects of unit price on preference for reduced nicotine
content cigarettes and smoking rate. Preventive medicine, 128, p.105823.
Goodchild, M., Nargis, N. and d'Espaignet, E.T., 2018. Global economic cost of smoking-
attributable diseases. Tobacco control. 27(1), pp.58-64.
Landtblom, K. K., 2018. Prospective Teachers’ Conceptions of the Concepts Mean, Median and
Mode. In Students' and Teachers' Values, Attitudes, Feelings and Beliefs in
Mathematics Classrooms (pp. 43-52). Springer, Cham.
Leech, N., Barrett, K. and Morgan, G. A., 2013. SPSS for intermediate statistics: Use and
interpretation. Routledge.
Prestwich, A., Kenworthy, J. and Conner, M., 2017. Health behavior change: Theories, methods
and interventions. Routledge.
Rasyid, M. and Ahsan, A., 2020. Revenue and Cost Analysis for Unhealthy Commodity
(Tobacco Products): Comparative Study among Indonesia and some ASEAN
Countries. Unnes Journal of Public Health. 9(1), pp.1-10.
Suzuki, D. and et.al., 2019. Association of secondhand smoke and depressive symptoms in
nonsmoking pregnant Women: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of
affective disorders, 245, pp.918-927.
Team, R.C., 2016. foreign: read data stored by Minitab, S, SAS, SPSS, Stata, Systat, Weka,
dBase. R package version 0.8-67.
Young, W. and et.al., 2016. Peer Reviewed: Health, Secondhand Smoke Exposure, and Smoking
Behavior Impacts of No-Smoking Policies in Public Housing, Colorado, 2014–
2015. Preventing chronic disease, 13.
Online
WHO’s factsheet about Tobacco. 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco#:~:text=The%20tobacco
%20epidemic%20is%20one,exposed%20to%20second%2Dhand%20smoke.>
Why Won't Our Patients Stop Smoking? 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2811470/>
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