LIFESTYLE EFFECTS ON INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES (LEIBD): PATIENT AWARENESS OF HOW SMOKING AFFE...

Search CDDW 2009 Abstracts

205

LIFESTYLE EFFECTS ON INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES (LEIBD): PATIENT AWARENESS OF HOW SMOKING AFFECTS THEIR DISEASE

V Huang, W Depew
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
Aims: Smoking has been shown to affect the predisposition and disease course of the inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). The aim of this study was to characterize the smoking habits and the level of awareness of how smoking affects of ambulatory IBD patients.
Methods: A questionnaire-based study was conducted in the ambulatory IBD clinics at the Hotel Dieu Hospital, Kingston from March 2005 to September 2006.
Results: 242 patients participated in the study: 155 with Crohn's disease (CD), 75 with ulcerative colitis (UC), and 12 with indeterminate disease (ID). Patients responded that at the time of diagnosis they were non-smokers (n=119), smokers (n=74) or former smokers (n=41). As expected there was a significant association between smoking status at diagnosis and disease category (chi-squared=24.518; p<0.05). Awareness of smoking effects on CD and UC was low (16.0% for CD; 28% for UC). There were significant associations between awareness of smoking effects on both CD and UC and family doctor discussions (CD chi-squared=18.046; p<0.05; UC chi-squared=13.660; p<0.05). At the time of the questionnaire, there were 108 non-smokers, 51 smokers, and 83 former smokers. Of the smokers, 48 had CD, 2 had UC, and 1 had ID. The majority of the smokers were in the contemplation or preparation stage of quitting smoking (57.1%). The most frequently reported reasons a smoker would quit smoking included “concern over future health”, “smoking related illness”, “other health problems”, “exacerbation of IBD”, and “change in lifestyle”.
Conclusions: These results suggest that patients are not aware of how smoking affects IBD. However, more patients who have had a discussion with their family doctor about this topic are aware that smoking affects IBD. In addition, most smokers are in the contemplation or precontemplation stage. Therefore, education that smoking can affect their future health and may increase the risk of exacerbations of disease may support their attempts to quitting smoking. A second study designed to assess family doctors' level of awareness of how smoking affects CD and UC is planned.
IBD type diagnosed according to Smoking Status at time of diagnosis.

PREVIOUS NEXT