European Heart Journal Advance Access originally published online on October 6, 2005
European Heart Journal 2006 27(1):35-41; doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehi497
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Smoking behaviour in European patients with established coronary heart disease
1Department of Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2Department of Public Health, Ghent University, Belgium
3Department of Medicine, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland
4Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Münster, Germany
5Cardiovascular Medicine, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, UK
Received 13 February 2004; revised 15 August 2005; accepted 25 August 2005; online publish-ahead-of-print 6 October 2005.
* Corresponding author. Tel: +31 10 463 2307; fax: +31 10 408 9484. E-mail address: h.boersma{at}erasmusmc.nl
Aims Treatment guidelines for patients with established coronary disease emphasize the importance of smoking cessation. We aimed to study smoking behaviour in European patients, as well as trends in this behaviour over time. We further aimed to evaluate the relation between selected patient characteristics and smoking cessation.
Methods and results We studied patients who were enrolled in the second European Action on Secondary Prevention through Intervention to Reduce Events (EUROASPIRE) survey, which was undertaken in 15 European countries during 1999–2000. Consecutive patients, 
70 years were identified after coronary artery bypass grafting, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, admission for myocardial infarction, or admission for myocardial ischaemia. Patients were then interviewed, at a median of 1.5 years after the index event. During the interview, data were collected on a broad range of clinical characteristics, including smoking status, which was validated by breath carbon monoxide levels. The prevalence of smoking was compared with data from the first EUROASPIRE survey, which had a similar design, and was conducted during 1995–96. In EUROASPIRE II, 5551 patients attended the interview and 1172 (21%) were (persistent) smokers. No decrease in smoking prevalence was observed similar to the first survey (19%). The proportion of smokers was 39% in patients aged <50, 26% in patients aged 50–60, and 14% in patients aged 
60. Men and women had similar prevalence. A verbal advice to give up smoking by a medical professional was given to 99% of the 2244 pre-event smokers, and 48% actually stopped. This proportion was relatively high in elderly patients 60 years (53%), patients with a university level of education (56%), and patients with a myocardial infarction as the index event (52%). The proportion of stopped smokers was low in patients <50 years (41%) and in patients with myocardial ischaemia as the index event (38%).
Conclusion The prevalence of smoking in European patients with established coronary disease is too high: one out of each five patients smokes, despite a personal advice to stop. Thus, still there is a need for the development of effective smoking cessation programmes.
Key Words: Euro Heart Survey • EUROASPIRE • Preventive cardiology • Smoking
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