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Impaired quality of life of healthy young smokers
José Antônio Baddini Martinez1, Gustavo Assis Mota, Elcio Santos Oliveira Vianna
1Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Avenida Bandeirantes 3900, CEP: 14048-900, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo, Brazil. jabmarti@fmrp.usp.br
Study Objective:
To investigate the health-related quality of life (HRQL) profile of healthy young subjects with a short smoking history.
Design:
Observational data at a single point in time.
Setting:
Survey in two public universities.
Participants:
Seventy-seven smoker students without any comorbidities (39 men; mean +/- SD age, 20.5 +/- 2.0 years). A control group for HRQL measurements was composed of 97 healthy, never-smoker students from the same universities (55 men; mean +/- SD age, 20.6 +/- 2.0 years).
Interventions:
All subjects were blinded to the study proposal, and answered autoapplicable forms dealing with healthy habits, smoking, and the 36-item short form questionnaire.
Results:
Never-smokers showed higher mean quality-of-life scores than smokers in all domains. Statistically significant differences were observed for the domains physical functioning (86.5 +/- 12.9 vs 93.4 +/- 9.6), general health perceptions (64.3 +/- 19.8 vs 79.2 +/- 13.4), vitality (58.4 +/- 20.0 vs 64.6 +/- 16.5), social functioning (59.3 +/- 19.7 vs 76.3 +/- 19.6), and mental health index (66.4 +/- 21.1 vs 71.9 +/- 15.5).
Conclusions:
Healthy, light-to-moderate smokers with a short smoking history show significant impairment in physical and mental domains of HRQL in comparison to never-smokers. A better elucidation of these aspects may provide useful information for planning smoking-cessation interventions.
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