Assessment of motivation of the patients with atherosclerosis of the lower limbs to stop smoking

Introduction: Atherosclerosis of the lower limbs is a chronic disease of the circulatory system. It is caused by many factors including cigarette smoking. Patients should try to fight the addiction.

Aim of the study: For this purpose an assessment of the degree of the patients’ motivation to give up the habit of smoking and the level of nicotine addiction was performed and an attempt to determine factors affecting the patient's motivation to stop smoking was made.

Material and methods: 60 patients hospitalized in the General and Vascular Surgery Department of the A. Jurasz University Hospital in Bydgoszcz were examined. The criteria of including patients into the study was the presence of clinical symptoms and the diagnosis of the chronic lower limb ischemia and cigarette smoking. For study purposes N. Schneider’s test, Fagerström’s questionnaire and a survey prepared by the authors were used.

Results: The average result of the motivation test was 6.83. Willingness to give up the addiction was shown by 58.3% of respondents. The average result – 6.55 – obtained by the Fagerström’s questionnaire on nicotine addiction indicated the average level of addiction of all respondents. Patients who are heavily addicted to nicotine showed a lack of readiness to quit the smoking habit. Patients with the secondary and higher education and higher levels of health awareness had higher motivation to give up the habit.

Conclusions: Caring for one’s own health and severe symptoms increased smokers’ motivation. Other factors that improve the motivation included: support from family, declaring willingness to give up the habit, knowledge of the reasons why the patient smokes cigarettes. The lack of willingness to change was mainly caused by the lack of knowledge of respondents about the possibility of fighting the addiction including where and how to seek help.