title: Associations of psychological capital, demographic and occupational factors with cigarette smoking among Chinese underground coal miners.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  As a specific male occupational group, underground coal miners have been commonly found to have a high prevalence of cigarette smoking. It is of urgent need to explore some factors that could be intervened to reduce smoking from personal or internal perspective. The purpose of the present study was to examine the associations of psychological capital (PsyCap), demographic and occupational factors with smoking among Chinese underground coal miners.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a coal-mining population in northeast China. Twenty-five hundreds of male underground miners were sampled from six coal mines. Self-administered questionnaires involving current smoking status, specific scales to measure the levels of PsyCap, effort-reward imbalance (ERI) and perceived physical environment (PPE), and some demographic and occupational factors were completed anonymously after a day shift. Complete responses were obtained from 1,956 participants (response rate: 78.2%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the factors in relation to current smoking.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall smoking prevalence was 52.4%. After controlling for demographic and occupational variables, PsyCap was not associated with smoking. Compared with the miners in the lowest tertile of resilience, the odds ratios (ORs) of smoking for the miners in the intermediate tertile and highest tertile were 1.30 (95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.99-1.70) and 1.58 (95% CI: 1.13-2.20), respectively. Compared with the miners in the lowest tertile of optimism, the ORs of smoking for the miners in the intermediate tertile and highest tertile were 0.79 (95% CI: 0.61-1.03) and 0.69 (95% CI: 0.51-0.92), respectively. Low education and high PPE were the risk factors of smoking, whereas ERI had no association with smoking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  More than half of the underground coal miners were current smokers, which indicated that cigarette smoking might be a common health risk behavior in this occupational population. High resilience and PPE, together with low education were the risk factors of smoking, whereas high optimism was a protective factor. Consequently, PsyCap had mixed effects on cigarette smoking. Investment in resilience and optimism should be given more attention for the purposes of the prevention and reduction of smoking among occupational populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, 92 North 2nd Road, Heping District, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110001, PR China. liul@mail.cmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Library, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, No.36 Sanhao Street, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110004, PR China. xux@sj-hospital.org.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, 92 North 2nd Road, Heping District, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110001, PR China. wuhui@mail.cmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, 92 North 2nd Road, Heping District, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110001, PR China. 836208159@qq.com.
authors.forename: Yilong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine, School of Public Health, China Medical University, 92 North 2nd Road, Heping District, Shenyang, Liaoning, 110001, PR China. liewang@mail.cmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Lie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003032:Coal Mining; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D015995:Prevalence; D012201:Reward; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult