Abstract
Use of tobacco is associated with significant morbidity and mortality globally. It is one of the leading risk factors of several diseases including cardiovascular pulmonary diseases and cancers. Stopping smoking has immediate and major health benefits. A major opportunity to promote health and well being exists in hospitals when smokers get admitted as patients. Doctors and paramedical staff have the authoritative power to ask patients to stop smoking. Thus this study was conducted to find out the percentage of smoker patients who were motivated by doctors to quit smoking. In addition the socio demographic characteristics and smoking habits were studied and also factors that were associated with attitude for quitting smoking were assessed. A hospital based cross sectional study with quantitative method of data collection was done among patients who are smokers admitted to this hospital for smoking related diseases like coronary vascular disease (CVD), lung and any other diseases apparently not related to smoking. Quantitative data was collected through face to face interview using a pre tested questionnaire. Analysis was done with descriptive statistics and chi square using epi info. Out of 179 patients who participated 177 were males. The mean age of patients was 54.8 with a standard deviation of 14.6 years. More than 85% belonged to the lower and lower middle class. More than 50% of patients smoked cigarettes. The mean age of initiation of smoking was 16 years and peer pressure was the most common reason for initiation. In this study 64% of the total smoker patients were motivated by doctors to quit smoking while only 26% of smoker patients admitted for non related diseases were motivated by doctors Brief advice by doctors and the smoking related diseases namely lung and CVD’s were factors associated with motivation to stop smoking while social class was not associated with motivation for cessation. Simply addressing the topic of smoking is a crucial first step in a medical consultation. Patients with tobacco-related complaints should be told that their problem is related to tobacco use and they should consider quitting. With patients who do not have tobacco related diseases the subject of tobacco usage will have to be addressed in a general way. Introducing the smoking topic can initiate a structured intervention tailored to the patient's needs.
Highlights
Use of tobacco is associated with significant morbidity and mortality globally. [1] The tobacco epidemic is one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world
In coronary heart disease risk drops to 50% at one year of stopping smoking and becomes non smoker rates at 10 years
It is evident that there was an increase in the number of smokers up to 55 years of age and the numbers declined. This is in accordance to prevalence studies on smoking done in India and other developed countries [14, 15]
Summary
Use of tobacco is associated with significant morbidity and mortality globally. [1] The tobacco epidemic is one of the fastest growing epidemics in the world. More than one third of India’s population (275 million people) was estimated to be tobacco users and 1 million deaths a year was attributed to smoking in 2010 [3, 4]. At present tobacco use causes death of 6 million people globally. [4] This is expected to rise to 10 million by 2020 out of which developing countries would have an around estimated death of 7 million because of the increasing use of tobacco [4, 5, 6]. In coronary heart disease risk drops to 50% at one year of stopping smoking and becomes non smoker rates at 10 years. In lung cancer risk drops to less than 60% at one year of stopping smoking and attains non smoker rates at 10 years. In lung cancer risk drops to less than 60% at one year of stopping smoking and attains non smoker rates at 10 years. [7]
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