Background
: This study was done to find out disease related factors affecting voluntary cessation of smoking,

Methods : A questionnaire survey was carried out on 380 patients with past history of smoking who visited out-patient department after discharge from one university hospital in Pusan city.

Results : Subjects were divided into two groups ; smoker group who has persisted smoking after discharge from hospital and quitter group who quitted smoking after discharge. Among 380 subjects there were 214 smokers(56.3%) and 166 quitters(43.7%).
The variables that were associated significantly between two groups were age, mattital status, regular exercise, alcohol drinking, salt intake, recognition about harmful effect of smoking after hospitalization, duration of hospitalization and type of disease.
Smoking associated diseases were more frequent in quitter group(28.3%) than in smoker group(11.7%) even after adjustment for age, marrital status and health behaviours including regular exercise, alcohol drinking, and salt intake(p=0.003).
There was statistically significant difference in the distribution of diseases in smoker and quitter group(p=0.001) ; the top three diseases were malignant neoplasm(30.7%), cardiovascular diseases(22.3%) and respiratory diseases(13.9%) in quitter group and musculoskeletal diseases(34.6%), nervous diseases(22.9%) and gastrointestinal diseases(16.8%) in smoker group.

Conclusion : These findings suggested that disease related factors may contribute to voluntary cassation of smoking. Therefore physicians can help their patients who would like to quit smoking in their clinic.