The purpose of this study was to identify nicotine dependence, smoking-related attitude, and subjective norms across the stages of change for smoking cessation among adult smokers in a rural area.

The subjects were 276 current smokers (male=243, female=33). There were 3 stages of change for smoking cessation: pre-contemplation, contemplation, and preparation stage. Data was collected by an interview or self-reporting from February 12th to March 5th 2004, and analyzed with frequency, percentage, χ²-test, Fisher's exact probability test, ANOVA, and Scheffe test using the SPSS-PC program.

According to the stages of change, 114(41.3%) current smokers were in pre-contemplation, 110(39.9%) in contemplation, and 52(18.8%) in the preparation stage. There was a higher percentage of males than females (χ²=8.99, p=.011) in the preparation stage. The mean score of the smoking-related attitude (F=7.43, p=.001) and subjective norm(F=27.41, p=.001) were both lowest in the pre-contemplation stage and increased positively during the stages of change for smoking cessation.

Based on these findings, the authors recommend that community-based smoking cessation programs should be developed by considering the intention or motives of current smokers and should be initiated in the preparation stage and primarily for male groups.