Smoking status among hypertensive patients in Mosul City

Smoking cigarettes is a serious public health issue that has a negative impact on blood pressure. Smoking aggravates hypertension and increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The study aimed to evaluate hypertensive patients' smoking status and their intention to quit. This study also assessed the impact of smoking on blood pressure.

A cross-sectional study was conducted among hypertensive patients who visited a public hospital in the city of Mosul. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit the hypertensive patients who attended the outpatient clinic at the public hospital. Patients with hypertension from both genders were encouraged to take part in the survey. The data was collected from all the patients by using a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 386 hypertensive patients were successfully completed the survey.

This study showed that 40.4% of hypertensive patients were smokers, and 68.6% of them were heavy smokers with an average of 19.5 ± 11.6 years of smoking. Furthermore, 55.1% of the smokers have the intention to quit smoking, and 71.8% of them received advice from a physician to quit smoking to control blood pressure. Moreover, 73.1% of smokers knew medications help to quit smoking, and only 9% of them used nicotine replacement therapy as assistance to quit smoking. The mean values of systolic and diastolic in smokers were 143.1 ± 7.31 mm Hg and 88.4 ± 6.58 mm Hg, respectively, which were significantly higher than non-smokers. The findings also indicated that an elevated hemoglobin level was significantly influenced by the heaviness of smoking (P < 0.001).

Cigarette smoking among hypertensive patients was obviously high. More attentions are needed from healthcare professionals to disseminate information about the risks of smoking in relation to the control of hypertension.