ArticleBMC family practice2006
Characteristics and prevalence of hardcore smokers attending UK general practitioners.
Article in BMC family practice, 2006. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Are there hardened smokers in low- and middle-income countries? Findings from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey.Tobacco induced diseases · 2019Article
- Prevalence of hardcore smoking in the Netherlands between 2001 and 2012: a test of the hardening hypothesis.BMC public health · 2016Article
- Prevalence and factors associated with hardcore smoking in Poland: findings from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (2009-2010).BMC public health · 2014Article
- Perceived pros and cons of smoking and quitting in hard-core smokers: a focus group study.BMC public health · 2014Article
- Did hardening occur among smokers in England from 2000 to 2010?Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2014Article
- Hardcore smokers in Norway 1996-2009.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2011Article
- "I did not intend to stop. I just could not stand cigarettes any more." A qualitative interview study of smoking cessation among the elderly.BMC family practice · 2011Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSmoking remains a public health problem and although unsolicited GPs' advice against smoking causes between one and three percent of smokers to stop, a significant proportion of smokers are particularly resistant to the notion of stopping smoking. These resistant smokers have been called "hardcore smokers" and although 16% of smokers in the community are hardcore, little is known about hardcore smokers presenting to primary care physicians. Consequently, this study reports the characteristics and prevalence of hardcore smokers attending UK GPs.
methodsA cross-sectional survey using data from two different research projects was conducted. Data for this analysis had been collected from surgery consultation sessions with 73 GPs in Leicestershire, England, (42 GPs from one project). Research assistants distributed pre-consultation questionnaires to 4147 adults attending GPs' surgery sessions. Questionnaires identified regular smokers, the proportion of hardcore smokers and their characteristics. Non-hardcore and hardcore smokers' ages, gender and nicotine addiction levels were compared.
results1170 regular smokers attended surgery sessions and, 16.1% (95% CI, 14.1 to 18.4) were hardcore smokers. Hardcore smokers had higher levels of nicotine addiction than others (p = 0.000), measured by the Heaviness of Smoking Index and were more likely to be male [50.5% hardcore versus 35.3% non-hardcore, (OR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.4 to 2.6)] but no age differences were observed between groups.
conclusionA significant minority of the smokers who present in general practice are resistant to the notion of smoking cessation and these smokers are more heavily nicotine addicted than others. Although clinical guidelines suggest that GPs should regularly advise all smokers against smoking, it is probable that hardcore smokers do not respond positively to this and help to make up the 97%-99% of smokers who do not quit after being advised to stop smoking by GPs. General practitioners need to find approaches for raising the issue of smoking during consultations in ways that do not reinforce the negative opinions of hardcore smokers concerning smoking cessation.
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