title: Awareness of blindness and other smoking-related diseases and its impact on motivation for smoking cessation in eye patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Cigarette smoking is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. The association between smoking and eye diseases is less widely recognised relative to other better-known smoking-related conditions. This study aims to assess the awareness and fear of known smoking-related diseases among current smokers attending an ophthalmology outpatient clinic and to evaluate their relative impact on the likelihood of smoking cessation.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional survey using a structured interview of randomly selected current smokers attending an eye clinic was conducted. The knowledge of six smoking-related diseases (lung cancer, heart attack, stroke, blindness, other cancers, and other lung diseases) was assessed. The fear of smoking-related conditions and the relative impact of each smoking-related condition on the smoker's motivation to quit smoking were evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Out of 200 current smokers aged from 14 to 83 years, only 42.5% (85 patients) were aware that smoking causes blindness. Smokers' perception of harm caused by smoking was 6.53±3.21 (mean±SD) on a visual analogue scale of 0 to 10. Patients placed blindness as the second most important motivating factor to quit smoking immediately, within 1 year and 5 years, after lung cancer.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The awareness of the risk of blindness from smoking was lowest compared with five other smoking-related diseases among eye patients who smoke. However, blindness remains a key motivational factor in smoking cessation and hence should be emphasised as an important negative health consequence of smoking in public health education and anti-smoking campaigns.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Singapore, Singapore. handa.swapan@gmail.com
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Handa
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Woo
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Wagle
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Htoon
authors.forename: K G
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Au Eong
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001766:Blindness / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000523:psychology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult