Categories
· Health/Science
· Opinion/Surveys
· Pregnancy
· Women
non-USA, by Country
· UK-Scotland
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BMJ 2009;339:b4347, doi: 10.1136/bmj.b4347 (Published 29 October 2009)
Jump to full article: British Medical Journal, 2009-11-02
Author: identifying women with never, former, or unknown smoking
Intro: In conclusion, reliance on self reporting to measure smoking during pregnancy significantly underestimates the number of pregnant smokers in Scotland, with more than 2400 unrecognised pregnant smokers a year who will not be offered smoking cessation services. Reliance on self reporting resulted in twice as many undetected smokers in the most deprived areas compared with the least deprived areas. Overall, these figures call for more accurate methods of identifying pregnant smokers, especially when such data are used to inform policy and provide patient care.
What is already known on this topic
Self reported smoking during pregnancy is known to be an inaccurate method of identifying smokers Self reported smoking in Scotland is used to generate smoking prevalence and, largely, to target smoking cessation services
What this study adds
Reliance on self reported smoking during pregnancy underestimates the true smoking prevalence in Scotland by 17% Each year in Scotland twice as many pregnant smokers from more deprived areas go undetected compared with pregnant smokers in the least deprived areas Reliance on self reporting results in a failure to detect over 2400 pregnant smokers each year in Scotland who are therefore not offered smoking cessation services
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