Effects of Pictorial Health Warnings (PHWs) on Smoking Behavior of Educated Adult Urban Population of Islamabad

Background: This study was conducted to determine the impact of pictorial health warnings (PHWs) on smoking behavior among the adult urban population of Islamabad. Methods: A total of 384 participants were enrolled including students and general public who were interviewed using a pre designed questionnaire. The respondents were approached at their study/work places and enrolled using non-probability convenient sampling technique. The collected data were entered, cleaned and analyzed by using statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0. Results: Of the total 384, n=241(62.8%) were male while n=143(37.2%) were female and majority of them were aged between 18 to 33 years. The ratio of smokers and non-smokers were n=310 (80.7%) and n= 74 (19.3%) respectively. Of the 310 smokers, 42% had made an attempt to quit smoking after seeing the pictorial health warning on cigarettes’ packs and among them 23% were successful in quitting smoking. Of the total 384, n=293 (76.3%) responded that family environment influence children towards smoking. Similarly, n=126 (32.98%) reported the role of peer pressure in smoking while n=330 (85.98%) participants believed that media have significant role in modifying cultural norms. Conclusion: Over all positive response of pictorial health warnings on cigarettes ’packs was seen for quitting smoking.