L'habitude de fumer en Suisse: comportement actuel et comportement envisagé

This study is based on data already collected by the Swiss Institute for Alcohol Prophylaxis (ISPA-SFA) in 1981, in samples representative in equal parts of each linguistic area of Switzerland, and partly published in this periodical in 1983(4). Precise information on their present smoking habit, as well as on the self-predicted smoking behaviour in 5 years from the time of the interview, was obtained from 1462 respondents of both sexes and 15–74 years of age. Regarding the present habit, a generation effect has been shown in females only; in addition, in the 15–24 years age group, more females than males are smokers, as observed elsewhere. Regarding the predicted smoking behaviour, it is stroughly associated to the present one when non smokers, ex-smokers and all smokers are considered, in both sexes and all age groups. Nevertheless, among the smokers in the younger age groupe (15–24 years), an interesting sex differential has been observed: in males, the more one smokes, the more one predicts to become in 5 years a non smoker, whereas this is not observed in females.