Tabagismo, renda e escolaridade: análise qualitativa e quantitativa em três postos de saúde de São Gonçalo

Abstract

Smoking is a disease caused by nicotine dependence and is included in the group of mental and behavioral disorders resulting from the use of psychoactive substance, being considered a case of public health. In the last decades society has been facing problems of modernity as a relentless pursuit of financial growth, stress, traffic, fragile interpersonal relationships. All these factors have generated in the population a frequent tension, which have sought in tobacco addiction an ephemeral pleasure. The present study aims to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the profile of smokers in relation to the correlation between the degree of dependence, income and schooling. Some variables such as gender, age, ethnicity and expenditures on smoking of nicotine cigarettes were evaluated through the Fagerström nicotine dependence test responses and a socioeconomic questionnaire with structured, semi-structured and open questions. Our results indicate that there is a strong inverse correlation between the degree of nicotine dependence and schooling since smokers with high and very high levels of dependence had low levels of schooling; that ethnicity has no relation to the degree of dependency and that women seek more help for anti-smoking treatment than men. In our sample, the anti-smoking treatment offered in the three UBS analyzed was efficient.