title: Differences in happiness between smokers, ex-smokers and never smokers: cross-sectional findings from a national household survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Happiness has become established as an important psychological dimension and not merely the obverse of depression and anxiety. Ex-smokers report that they are happier than when they were smoking but this could reflect biased recall. To date, no studies have examined happiness as a function of smoking status in ex-smokers of varying length of abstinence compared with current and never smokers.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional household study of a nationally representative sample of adults examined the association between smoking status (never smoker, smoker, ex-smoker<1 year, ex-smoker ≥ 1 year) and two standard measures of happiness adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics (N=6923).
  
  
  RESULTS
  After adjusting for age, gender and social grade, ex-smokers of ≥ 1 year reported higher levels of happiness than smokers (p<0.001) and similar levels to never smokers. Ex-smokers of <1 year had similar levels to smokers. Smoking to feel less depressed (p<0.001) or anxious (p<0.044) were the only smoking characteristics associated with lower happiness among current smokers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Ex-smokers who have stopped for a year or more are happier than current smokers and similar to never smokers. Whilst these results are cross-sectional and have to be interpreted with caution, this adds to the evidence that smoking may decrease happiness and stopping may increase it.
authors: Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 2-16 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK. lion.shahab@ucl.ac.uk
authors: Lion
authors: L
authors: Shahab
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: West
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000523:psychology*