Readiness for smoking change among middle-aged Finnish men.

According to the transtheoretical model of change, smoking cessation attempts are preceded by three stages: precontemplation, contemplation, and preparation. These stages have shown great utility in predicting and impacting on behavior change. This cross-cultural study examined the distribution of the stages within a 33% random sample of middle-aged Finnish men. Of 490 regular smokers, 57.6% were in precontemplation, 29.4% in contemplation, and 13.0% in preparation. Five conceptual clusters were used to predict the stage membership. The number of lifetime quit attempts and the number of 24-h quit attempts in the past 12 months were found to be the best discriminators among the stages. The overall correct classification rate into stages using stepwise discriminant function analysis was 64.0%, substantially better than the chance rate. However, the analysis was successful for precontemplators only. Results showed that most smokers were precontemplators. Previous attempts to reduce smoking provided some predictive information concerning stage membership. Demographics, addiction to smoking, current smoking, smoking environment, and quit history were incomplete predictors of stage membership, as theoretically predicted.