How many copd patients are smokers

Female smokers are nearly 13 times as likely to die from COPD as women who have never smoked; male smokers are nearly 12 times as likely to die from COPD as men who have never smoked.

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Select your location to view local American Lung Association events and news near you. Our service is free and we are here to help you. For those with stages three or four severe and very severe COPD , they lose from six to nine years of life expectancy due to smoking.

This is in addition to the four years of life lost by anyone who smokes. If you have any questions about how your COPD smoking habit will affect your life expectancy, speak to your doctor.

One of the best ways of preventing COPD is not to smoke or be exposed to secondhand smoke, as it can cause a lot of damage to your airways and lungs. Whatever the circumstances, an early diagnosis and appropriate treatment regime for your needs can prevent further damage being caused to your lungs.

Sadly, there is no cure for COPD as the lung damage that has already occurred cannot be reversed. However, the disease can be managed and treated to help prevent further damage and improve your symptoms and quality of life.

ASH — Smoking and respiratory disease. Life expectancy LE and loss-of-LE for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Respir Med. Epub Aug Keep busy with other things. Take it 1 day at a time.

Ask your health care provider to help you quit. There are many ways to quit smoking , including:. List the reasons you want to quit.

Then set a quit date. You may need to try quitting more than once. And that's OK. Keep trying if you do not succeed at first. The more times you try to quit, the more likely you are to be successful. Secondhand smoke will trigger more COPD flare-ups and cause more damage to your lungs. So you need to take steps to avoid secondhand smoke.

If there are smokers at your workplace, ask someone about policies regarding if and where smoking is allowed. Tips to help with secondhand smoke at work are:. Therefore, we intended to evaluate the differences between these two groups.

A pulmonologist, a hospital staff member, follows up COPD patients in an outpatient clinic at regular intervals-every 3 to 6 months. There were patients having regular follow-ups in the COPD outpatient clinic at the time of the study.

During visits, appropriate patients who wanted to join the study were included after giving written informed consent. Each of the patients who had quit smoking after the COPD diagnosis had done it on their own without using smoking cessation medications. All of them reported that they had received advice from their doctor to quit and had been informed about the harmful effects of smoking on their lung health. Written informed consent forms of the participants were obtained by the first author of the study.

Afterwards, data collection started in June and ended August In the first part of the study, the researchers used face-to-face interviewing of patients by the pulmonologist to obtain information about their age, sex, education level, current work status, smoking status, comorbid diseases, COPD diagnosis time, number of exacerbations and hospitalizations due to COPD in the last year, answers to mMRC dyspnea scale 13 , and CAT It consists of eight items evaluating the frequency of cough, phlegm, chest tightness, breathless level at exercise, sleep status, and energy status, with scores ranging from 0 to 5 0—no impairment, 5—greatest impairment.

An overall score is calculated by adding the score from each item, with total scores ranging from 0 to 40, the higher scores indicating more severe health status impairment or a poorer control of COPD We used a Turkish version of the CAT that has already been translated and validated for use Lung function test parameters were expressed as a percentage of the predicted values for age, height, body weight, and sex 15 , Patients were asked to walk quickly along a 30 metre level corridor for 6 minutes, and the total distance walked was recorded in metres.

The test was carried out twice with a minute interval. The best value of the two tests was used for statistical analysis. Smoking status was recorded as former smoker or current smoker. Anyone who had smoked more than cigarettes in their lifetime and smoked in the last 28 days was classified as a current smoker; someone who had smoked more than cigarettes in their lifetime but had not smoked in the last 28 days was classified as a former smoker A history of comorbid disease was defined as a positive answer to questions regarding physician-diagnosed: diabetes, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, and other diseases.

Employment status was asked of each patient, and at the time of data analysis categorized as retired or working actively. Body mass index BMI was calculated as weight kg divided by height m squared. COPD exacerbations and hospital-treated COPD exacerbations in the last year were included in patient interviews, and also checked through the recorded hospital database.

Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version First, descriptive analysis mean, proportions was performed for each dependent variable. Categorical variables were described using their absolute and relative frequencies, while quantitative variables were described by the mean and standard deviation. Odds ratio OR univariates were calculated by logistic regression to evaluate the different risks contemplated in the study, including all demographic, clinical and quality-of-life variables.

After backward analysis, the various adjusted ORs were calculated using multivariate logistic regression, and only statistically significant associations are shown in Table 1. Factors associated with current smoking in univariate and multivariate analysis. In total patients were included in the study; mean age of the patients was Detailed characteristics of the patients and the comparisons according to their smoking status are seen in Table 2.

Our findings showed that among COPD patients, current smokers were more likely to be younger, have better lung function, walk a longer 6-MWD, and conversely, have worse quality of life, detected by the higher scores in the CAT, compared to former smokers. Moreover, current smoking prevalence has been found to be higher among COPD patients compared to healthy individuals in previous international studies 3 , 5.

It is essential to find solutions for successful cessation interventions for patients in this group, because smokers with COPD are shown to be less successful in quitting Though there are various reasons cited for this trend 3 , 25 , in previous studies of COPD patients those who were able to quit were found to be older 26 and have a further advanced disease Furthermore, patients who are beginning to lose the ability to take part in certain activities are more likely to quit, most likely in an effort to regain those abilities 4.

In other words, current smokers are living with less severe COPD-related activity limitations, and so their perception of COPD may be different from those with more severe symptoms. At diagnosis, more intensive education should be given to COPD patients, not only about inhaler use but also about outcomes and systemic effects of COPD, and the importance of quitting smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke exposure as well. At that point, brief interventions including our results could be an effective way to encourage smoking cessation in newly diagnosed, young COPD patients at the earlier stages of the disease Particularly, pointing out the increased respiratory symptoms and lowered QoL-even compared to older, more severe COPD patients who no longer smoke-could be the key.