Abstract

• Smoking is considered to be one of the important risk factors associated with various health problems. Thirty seven million people in America quit smoking in the past decade, with 90% quitting on their own(Americal Heart Association, 1986). According to McAlister(1975), 70% of smokers reported that they adopted a self-help smoking cessation approach rather than a formal treatment program. In our country, although, auccessful exsmokers have used, are not available, concerns about smoking cessation have increased, recently, due to changes in social and political attitudes to health promotion. This study was conducted to help smokers who had made a decision to adopt a self-helf smoking cessation approach instead of depending on a formal treatment program. It provided a structurd way for sucessful smoking cessation by identifying change mechanism factors which have been commonly used by smokers. The subjects selected for this study were 155 university students between 20 and 29. Years of age the results from the analysis of the collected data showed that seven factors in the self-help change processes significant, and they are named, Stimulus Control, Self-Determination, Information Management, Reinforcement Management, Helpful Relationships, Dramatic Relief and Cognitive Restructuring. All of the factors except Self-Determination represent the same change mechanisms which are proposed by Prochaska et al. (1988). Self-Determination uniformly includes items belonging to various change processes. Therefore, it might be an transitional factor including strategies related to both cognitive and behavioral dimensions. In spite of this, noted that one item which gives meaning of Self-Determination shows the highest factor loading, it is named Self-Determination.
• Keywords: smoking cessation; change process; change mechanism

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