Smoking is associated with impaired long-term quality of life in elderly people: a 22-year cohort study in NIPPON-DATA 90

J Epidemiol. 2023 Sep 23. doi: 10.2188/jea.JE20220226. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Background: Whether smoking is associated with worse quality of life (QoL) or not is relatively controversial. Current study is to investigate relationship between smoking and subjective QoL in a long cohort study.

Methods: NIPPON DATA 90 project collected 8383 community residents in 300 randomly selected areas as baseline data in 1990, and 4 follow-up QOL surveys and mortality statistics were performed. We conducted multinomial logistic regression analysis to compare past smoker and current smoker to never smoker, of which impaired QOL and mortality as outcomes.

Results: In 4 follow-ups, QOL data was collected from 2035, 2252, 2522 and 3280 participants, in 1995, 2000, 2005, 2012, respectively. In 1995 follow-up, current smoking at baseline was not associated with worse QOL. In 2000 and 2005 follow-up, smoking is significantly associated with worse QOL, OR = 2.11[95%CI: 1.33, 3.36, P<0.01], OR = 2.29[95%CI:1.38, 3.80, P < 0.001], respectively. In 2012 follow-up, smoking is not associated with QOL. Sensitivity analysis didn't change the result significantly.

Conclusions: In this study we found that baseline smoking is associated worse QOL in long-follow-up.

Keywords: cohort study; quality of life; smoking; tobacco control.