Introduction: Smoking is the most important modifiable risk factor for diseases which are not infectious (hypertension, ischemic heart disease, COPD, cancer) in both young and elderly people. In Poland 33.5% of men (5.2 million) and 21% of women (3.5 million), including 27% (8.7 million) of adult Poles still smoke every day. A tobacco smoker at his middle age loses on average almost 22 years of life, people at the age of 70 or more years on average 8 years. Therefore, the promotion of healthy behaviour in Poland, including giving up smoking, was included in the health programmes within the European Union and the National Health Programme for the years 2016-2020. The aim of the study was to present the characteristics of smoking among elderly people.
Materials and methods: 104 women (55.3%) and 84 men (44.7%) took part in the study. The analysis of demographic data, the history of smoking, and health tests were conducted among the participants of the study.
Results: The project involved 188 people. The average age of respondents was 69.3 years ± 5.3. People with secondary education 62.2% dominated in the study. Statistically significantly more women smoked a pack of cigarettes a day than men (p=0.036). Almost 10% of men smoked 2 packs of cigarettes significantly more often than women (p=0.001). There were no statistically significant differences among men and women, smoking over 40 cigarettes daily (p<0.05). Women at average smoked for 42 years ± 10.3, and men for 52.5 years ± 7.1 (p=0.001). Regardless of the sex of the respondents maximum period of smoking was the same – 63 years. The men began smoking in elementary school (13%) significantly more often than women in the same age group (2%) (p=0.001). A significant majority of men (86.9%) than women (51%) started smoking before the age of 20 (p=0.001). A group of 10,6% of women started smoking cigarettes between the age of 51-60, which was not observed in men (p<0.05). Men twice more suffered from emphysema and heart attack than women (p=0.001). Both smoking women and men suffered equally from hypertension, COPD and coronary heart disease (p>0.05).
Conclusions: Elderly current smokers started smoking in elementary school, and smoke an average of a pack of cigarettes daily for their whole adult life. The result of a long period of smoking is tobacco-related disease, and strong addiction to nicotine. This state can only be changed by the long-term anti-smoking programmes promoting cessation of tobacco use at all ages.