The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: To examine socio-demographic variation in time perspective and the association between future time perspective and quitting behaviour and intention among adult smokers in six ITC countries of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project: Canada, US, UK, Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Methods: We employed data from around 2000 adult smokers from each of the six countries recruited through the ITC survey. Time perspective was assessed by asking respondents to rate levels of agreement with the statement: “You spend a lot of time thinking about what you do today will affect your life in the future.”

Results: Overall, of the two developing countries, Thais were more likely than the Malaysians (88% vs 83%) to often think about the future impact of their current behaviour, and both were considerably more likely to do so than those in the 4 English-speaking countries (UK=51%, Australia=61%, Canada=65% and US=67%). Participants from the rural region of the two Asian countries were also more likely to exhibit future time perspective, particularly in Malaysia. Multiple logistic regression indicated that socio-demographic associates of future time perspective based on the combined Asian data included from rural region and from Thailand whereas those based on the four developed countries included younger age, male, and from North America. Future time perspective was also significantly associated with both past quitting and future intention to quit, and the strength of the association was similar across the four developed countries but differed markedly across the two Asian countries.