Table 4 Estimated 12‐month and lifetime prevalence of multiple cessation attempts among adolescent smokers according to level of cigarette consumption* and period of adolescence.

Country, study year†	Age/grade range	Definition of cessation	Prevalence (%) of cessation attempts by cumulative frequency‡
			⩾2	⩾3	⩾4
12‐month cessation attempts
Daily use (self‐declared current)
Middle to late adolescence
Canada, 199963,67	Age 15–17	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			28
	Age 15–19				23||
Canada, 200165	Age 15–17	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			22
	Age 15–19				23||
Canada, 200264	Age 15–17	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			20
	Age 15–19				19||
Canada, 200066	Age 15–17	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			23
Canada, 200362	Age 15–17	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			28
Late adolescence
Canada, 199963	Age 18–19	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			20
Canada, 200066	Age 18–19	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			19
Canada, 200165	Age 18–19	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			25
Canada, 200264	Age 18–19	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			18
Canada, 200362	Age 18–19	Number of quit attempts of at least 24 h duration			24
Lifetime cessation attempts
Any use (in the past month)
Early to middle adolescence
Canada, 199437	Age 10–14	Number of quit attempts	69§	49§
Republic of Palau, 200168	Grade 6–8	Tried to stop smoking	36	27
United States, 1989–199074	Age 12–13	Number of times tried to quit	62		25
Middle adolescence
United States, 1989–199074	Age 14–15	Number of times tried to quit	53		20
Early to late adolescence
Canada, 199437	Age 10–19	Number of quit attempts	63§||	40§||
United States, 1989–199074	Age 12–18	Number of times tried to quit	59||		22||
Middle to late adolescence
Canada, 199437	Age 15–19	Number of quit attempts	60§	37§
Republic of Palau, 200168	Grade 9–12	Tried to stop smoking	49	35
Late adolescence
United States, 1989–199074	Age 16–18	Number of times tried to quit	60		22

*Any use in the past month was defined operationally as “smoked ⩾1 cigarette in the past 30 days”, except in Allen et al⁷⁴ where it was defined as “smoked in the past 30 days” and in Hansen et al⁶⁸ where it was defined as: “smoked cigarettes ⩾1 day in the past 30 days”; daily use (self‐declared current) was defined operationally as: “daily smoker”.

†One additional report⁷⁰ provided mean (3.7), median (3.0) and range (1–20) of cessation attempts. However, these estimates were confined to smokers who had attempted cessation at least once, thus an estimate among all smoking adolescents could not be derived.

‡Findings for multiple cessation attempts were usually reported on an ordinal rather than on a continuous scale. The cumulative frequency categories reported here were derived by combining multiple ordinal categories. Summary estimates could only be calculated where the responses were scaled similarly across multiple studies.

§Estimated among the subgroup of adolescents who had smoked ⩾100 cigarettes in their lifetime.

||Excluded from the calculation of summary estimate because complete stratum‐specific estimates were available for this study.