Tobacco and tobacco product use addiction is one of a group of about 10 different addictive substances (alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, hallucinogens, inhalants, opioids, sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics, stimulants, tobacco, etc.). When ingested, they activate the brain reward system and cause addiction. In cases of addiction with cognitive, behavioral and physiological symptoms, people continue to use substances despite having problems. Addiction is a health problem that needs to be treated. Treatment is difficult but not impossible. It should be done in experienced and authorized centers. It is useful to determine the level of addiction of patients for correct approaches in treatment. It is known that the substance responsible for addiction in tobacco or tobacco product use addiction is NICOTINE.
Smoking habit is one of the most important social health problems today. According to the results of the "Global Adult Tobacco Survey", the rate of smoking in the country was found to be 27% (41.5% in men) among adults aged 15 years and over. Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable mortality and morbidity in our country, especially among men. Deaths that could be prevented with the prevention of tobacco use constitute .7 of all deaths. This rate is even higher in men and rises to 22.7%. A significant portion of smokers (about two thirds) cannot quit smoking due to nicotine addiction, even though they want to quit smoking. The smoking cessation rate in Turkey was reported as 9.4% and 9.9% in two separate studies. It is hypothesized that the difficulty in quitting smoking is due to the psychopharmacologic effects of nicotine as well as genetic and environmental factors. Determining the level of addiction in smokers who want to quit is important for the selection of treatment and the success of quitting. The Fagerström Nicotine Dependence Test (FBNT) is the most commonly used test for the assessment of smoking addiction. Fagerström first proposed the Fagerström Tolerance Test in 1978. This test was revised by Heatherton et al. in 1991 and the FBNT emerged. The Turkish validation of the test was conducted by Uysal et al. and it was found to be moderately reliable and attention was drawn to the questions to be considered. While there are studies reporting that the FBNT is effective in evaluating smoking and treatment outcome, there are also studies reporting that it is not discriminative between nicotine dependence levels above the intermediate level.
Fagerström nicotine dependence test is the most commonly used test in the assessment of smoking addiction. It was developed by Karl O. Fagerstörm to determine the level of physical dependence on nicotine. The Fagerström nicotine dependence test consists of 6 questions. The scores obtained in line with the answers to these 6 questions are summed and the level of addiction is calculated.