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Hazlinda Abu Hassan,1,3 Noorizan Abd Aziz,2,* Yahaya Hassan,2,* Fahmi Hassan2,* 1Malacca Pharmaceutical Services Division, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Ayer Keroh, Malaysia; 2Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Puncak Alam, Malaysia; 3Department of Respiratory Medicine, Malacca Hospital, Jalan Mufti Haji Khalil, Malaysia *These authors contributed equally to this work Background: Lack of awareness among ex-smokers on the benefits of sustaining smoking cessation may be the main cause of their smoking relapse. This study explored health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and hospital admission amongst chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients according to the duration of smoking cessation. Materials and methods: This study recruited COPD patients from a chest clinic who agreed to participate in a medication therapy-adherence program from January to June 2013. They were interviewed during their visits to obtain information regarding their smoking history and HRQoL. They were divided into three groups according to smoking status (sustained quitters, quit ≥5 years; quitters, quit 64 years) with low-to-middle level of education, who smoked more than 33 cigarettes per day and had high levels of adherence to the medication regimen. The results showed that sustained quitters were less likely to have respiratory symptoms (cough, phlegm and dyspnea) than smokers (odds ratio 0.02, confidence interval 0–0.12; P |
