The awareness of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease among smokers admitting to pulmonary medicine outpatient clinic: Single center experience

Abstract

Aims: Smoking is the strongest risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but the awareness of COPD among smokers has been found at low levels worldwide. The aim of current study was to assess the COPD awareness level among smokers and to determine the factors associated with awareness. Methods: The current study involved the smokers admitted to the smoking cessation outpatient clinic, pulmonary medicine outpatient clinic, and pulmonary medicine clinic of an Training and Research Hospital. A self-administered COPD awareness survey was applied and the question of “Have you ever heard the term of COPD?” was asked to all participants. According to the survey scores, participants were categorized into groups as “Poor”, “Good” and “Very Good” Awareness. Results: All included 531 participants were asked the question of “Have you ever heard the term of COPD?”, and 490 (92.3%) of them answered that question as “Yes”. Statistically significant differences were found between the participants saying “Yes” and those saying “No” in the terms of the age range, smoking status, and education status with the numbers and percentages of 117 (23.87%), 246 (50.2%), and 170 (34.69%) (p=0.039, p