Rauchen und pneumologische Erkrankungen, positive Effekte der Tabakentwöhnung

Smoking cessation in groups--who benefits in the long term?

The 'Rauchfrei Programm' is the most widespread cognitive behavioral group program for smoking cessation in Germany. The aim of this study was to evaluate smoking cessation in the routine care setting and to investigate whether certain characteristics predict long-term abstinence. The study is a longitudinal field study with a one group pre-post-follow-up design. Participants were 1319 smokers, who were asked to complete questionnaires before and after the program. Twelve months later, participants were followed-up by phone. 48.1% of participants attended every session. At the end of the program, 60.9% of the participants were smoke-free. After one year, the abstinence rate accounted for 31.8% (Intention-to-treat). A logistic regression analysis showed that male gender, higher age, being married, lower level of nicotine dependence as well as adherence to the program significantly increased the likelihood of abstinence, whereas education and employment did not. No significant influence of self-payment on the rates of abstinence was observed. It is concluded that the modern smoking cessation program is highly recommendable as it achieves sufficient abstinence rates in a real-life setting. However, it still remains a challenge to increase adherence rates and to achieve comparable success rates in smokers with different characteristics.

Smoking practices in Jordanian people and their impact on semen quality and hormonal levels among adult men

Despite worldwide anti-smoking campaigns, cigarette smoking prevalence is increasing in the third-world countries. It is now regarded as the most important public health issue. Here, we study the current smoking situation and investigate the impact of cigarette smoking on semen quality and hormonal levels among adult people. Furthermore, we suggest various strategies to reduce smoking consumption among young individuals. Across-sectional data from 804 adult smoker subjects (male n = 530 and female n = 274) aged between 15 and 45 years were analyzed. One hundred and eleven males were agreed for further evaluation of their semen quality and hormones compared with 93 age-matched non-smoking males. This study showed that the majorfactors initiating smoking among women were friends' influence (49%), life pressures (16%) and parental imitation (14%). The major reasons in men was friends' influence (65%). Furthermore, 61% ofwomen and 89% of men smoke in public implying social acceptance oreven encouragement of this habit. This study also found that low-income Jordanians consume more tobacco materials than those in the middle- and higher income. Furthermore, smokers had significantly lower (p < 0.001) sperm concentration and motility values and higher (p < 0.001) serum testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH) levels than non-smokers.