Introduction:According to GATS-2 report, one out of every five persons in Gujarat uses smokelesstobacco (SLT).Tobacco causes addiction & dependence over a period of time.Tobacco cessation is anintegral part of the National Tobacco Control Programme.Objective:To estimate the proportion ofprevious quit attempts and its determinants among current SLT users of an urban slum inAhmedabad.Methods:A community-based, cross-sectional study using consecutive sampling wasconducted between June 2023 - August 2023 among 250 current SLT users in an urban slum ofAhmedabad( Ward number 15). A pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire adapted from GATS-2(Global Adult Tobacco Survey-2) Tobacco Questions for Surveys was administered among theparticipants for eliciting sociodemographic characteristics, SLT consumption pattern and quittingattempts. Results:In this study, 68.8% of the participants had at least one past quit attempt out ofwhich 94.7% tried self- control methods. The most common reason for not being able to quit wasperceived as addiction (70.9%). A larger part of SLT users (89%) had noticed warning labels intobacco packets and 18.3% of them reported that they thought of quitting seeing that warning. Threefourth of the participants were advised by at least one person to not consume tobacco products & in60% of the cases, it was the spouse.Conclusions and recommendations:The results suggest that there is an obvious lacuna in the community's utilization of services, despite the fact that National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) provides nationwide cessation services. This demonstrates theneed for extensive community-based tobacco cessation activities. Keywords:Smokelesstobacco(SLT), Addiction,Quit Attempt, National Tobacco Control Programme(NTCP)
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