Impact of reproductive experience on women's smoking behaviour in Japanese nurses

The objectives of this study were to describe current and past smoking behaviour of female Japanese nurses, to examine factors associated with developing and stopping a smoking habit, and to examine how their reproductive experiences affect their smoking behaviour.

A cross-sectional study. This study was a baseline survey of a prospective occupational cohort study.

A self-administered survey of 1748 female Japanese nurses aged over 20 years was conducted in Gunma prefecture, Japan, in 1999.

Overall, 27.2% developed a smoking habit (current smokers, 19.8%; ex-smokers, 7.4%) and 72.2% were never smokers. Logistic regression analysis showed that the type of nursing certificate was statistically associated with developing a smoking habit. It also showed that the type of nursing certificate, work place, marital status and current pregnancy were statistically associated with smoking cessation. Currently pregnant women were more likely to stop smoking than non-pregnant women (adjusted odds ratio, 3.18; 95% confidence intervals, 1.25-8.06). For women aged 20-29 years, the proportions of current smokers, ex-smokers and never smokers among pregnant women were 11.5, 23.1 and 65.4%, respectively; among non-pregnant women of this age, the values were 22.3, 4.3 and 73.4%, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference in such proportions between the two groups (chi2=19.27; P<0.0001). More than half of the ex-smokers who were currently pregnant had stopped smoking in the last 12 months. Smoking behaviour showed no statistically significant difference between women who had had at least one delivery and women who had not.

The results suggest that pregnancy provides a good opportunity for smoking cessation, but a large proportion of women who successfully quit smoking during pregnancy relapse after delivery.