Cigarette Smoking and Health-related Quality of Life in the General Population of Iran: Independent Associations According to Gender.

Background: Associations between smoking and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the general population remain unclear. The aim of the study was to quantify the independent associations between smoking and HRQoL.

Methods: A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted on a total sample of 2197 participants obtained by multistage sampling to investigate the associations between smoking and HRQoL in the general population of southeast and southwest of Iran, aged 18-100 years in 2012-2013. Data were collected using a self-administrated of the 36-Item Short Form Survey (SF-36) questionnaire. Linear regression analyses were used to evaluate the associations between HRQoL and smoking while adjusting for various socioeconomic variables. In this study, < 0.05 was considered a significant difference.

Results: Out of the total of 2197 participants, current smokers and never smokers accounted for 13% and 87%, respectively. The mean HRQoL indices were for the current smokers 66.66 ± 17.86, and never smokers 71.35 ± 18.47 ( < 0.001). Independent associations between smoking and HRQoL were found, including negative associations ( < 0.001). The multivariate associations between smoking status and HRQoL, male smokers had a lower physical functioning, mental health, and total SF-36 score.

Conclusions: Smoking was independently related to HRQoL, with large differences according to the gender. This study showed that there is a significant difference in the quality of life related to health in male smokers compared to male nonsmokers.