Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Nicotine dependence has increased over the years and so has the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use. If the dependence is increasing, we must look for newer tobacco cessation strategies and implemented them. Tobacco causes premature deaths and nicotine dependence has both psychological and physical dependence. METHOD: The study was planned and an interview was conducted to collect the sociodemographic details, tobacco, and fagerstrom nicotine dependence scale - smokeless tobacco (FTND-ST) for nicotine dependence. The questionnaire was adopted from the WHO questionnaire and a pre-tested, predesigned, semi-structured questionnaire was used. RESULT: About almost half of the population is dependent on nicotine (51.6%). Daily smokeless tobacco users who are married and have a tobacco user in the family are mostly dependent on smokeless tobacco. Severity of smokeless tobacco dependence for nicotine dependence among smokeless tobacco users were associated with low academic achievement, increased awareness of side effects, and increase in duration and frequency of use. CONCLUSION: Nicotine dependence has increased despite efforts in the field in the recent years. Therefore, we need to have a mechanism for combining behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy that may increase smoking cessation rates.