Impact of Quantified Smoking Status on Cognition in Young Adults

Cigarette smoking is an addictive behaviour which continues to rise among young adults. It has been associated with various health hazards. Effect of smoking on cognitive function has been contradicting. Thus our aim was to compare cognitive performances between smokers and non smokers and also to observe the effect of varying intensity of smoking on cognition.

This is a cross-sectional study. Thirty non smokers, 30 mild smokers, 30 moderate smokers, 30 heavy smokers within the age group of 25-35 years were involved in the study. Their cognitive performance were assessed by digit symbol substitution test (DSST), digit vigilance test (DVT), visual reaction time (VRT), letter cancellation test (LCT), word recall (WR), and object recall (OR).

The cognitive data were analysed using unpaired students t-test and ANOVA in SPSS 19. Smokers showed significant decline in their cognitive performances when compared to smokers (p ≤ 0.05). Mild smokers showed significantly better performance in the DSST, DVT and VRT tests than the non smokers. This indicates the attention and alertness were better in mild smokers than the non smokers. With the increase in the intensity of smoking cognitive performances were also significantly declined.

Thus the study indicates decreased cognitive performances in young adult smokers.