MELBOURNE, July 15 (Xinhua) -- A new Melbourne-based study has found that patients in the emergency department (ED) have significantly higher rates of smoking than the general Australian population.
A study undertaken using a sample of almost 340 ED patients in Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital and the Austin Hospital, reported a smoking prevalence among the adult ED patient population to be 23.3 per cent, compared to the general Australian population of roughly 15 per cent.
Internationally, the prevalence of smoking among ED patients is reported to vary between 21 and 41 per cent.
The Melbourne data revealed that 78 of the ED participants reported being current smokers. The average age of those smokers was 42.1 years and 64 per cent were male. Forty-one per cent reported difficulty refraining from smoking, while 69.7 per cent had a desire to quit.
Tobacco smoking is the largest preventable cause of death in the world, with one in 10 adult deaths attributed to tobacco. Every year, approximately 15,000 Australians from tobacco use and costs Australia 24 billion US dollars in social (including health) and economic costs.
Since ED patients may be more willing to quit or reduce smoking because of their health status, researchers have highlighted EDs as an ideal location to facilitate smoking intervention programs, with the implementation of counseling services to be trialled.
However, while 60.3 per cent of the respondents were willing to undergo brief counseling, a session with an ED doctor (10.9 per cent) and multiple telephone-delivered interventions (12.7 per cent) were the least preferred formats.
Rather, ED patients said they'd prefer face-to-face counseling (40 per cent), and more than one-third preferred group counseling.
