Prevalence of smoking among currently married Kuwaiti males and females.
Author: Radovanovic Z, Shah N, Behbehani J.
Source:
European journal of epidemiology, 15(4), 349-354.
A structured questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 608 Kuwaiti
couples through a household face-to-face interview. Both spouses were non-smokers
in more than half (50.8%) of all the couples, and there was a single couple
(0.2%) with both spouses currently smoking. Only 0.5% of the wives reported
current smoking. The prevalence of smoking was 3.2% among divorced/widowed women
from the same households. The difference between the two groups of women remained
significant upon controlling for the confounding effect of age. Among the
husbands, frequencies of current and ex-smokers were 37% and 11%, respectively.
Younger respondents consumed more tobacco and were initiated to smoking at an
earlier age. Logistic regression showed that people with one to 11 years of
formal education were more likely to be current smokers as compared to the rest
of the respondents (adjusted relative risk: 2.07, 95% confidence interval (CI):
1.46-2.93). Reasons for the observed findings have been discussed.