Smoking and SF-36 health functioning

Objective. To examine the association between smoking and general health as measured by the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire. Methods. Data derived are from three cross-sectional surveys conducted in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Respondents to the postal surveys were middle-aged employees of the City of Helsinki (1799 men and 7171 women, response rate 67%). Smoking status was divided into current heavy and moderate smokers, ex-smokers and never smokers. Health status was measured by the eight SF-36 subscales and the physical and mental component summaries. Results. On the physical subscales, current smokers reported poorer health than non-smokers on general health and physical functioning in men. On the mental subscales, current smokers had consistently poorer health than non-smokers. However, often only heavy smokers differed from non-smokers. No differences were found between ex-smokers and never smokers on any subscale or the component summaries of the SF-36. Conclusions. Differences between smoking categories were found on some physical and all mental subscales of the SF-36. The differences were slightly larger among men. As heavy smokers more often report limitations with daily activities as well as loss of well-being, these impairments potentially provide valuable incentives for non-smoking to be used in health education messages and interventions.