Less smoking due to work stress?

People smoke less when they have more stress at work?

Scientists from the University of Cologne came to a study on amazing results. So people who suffer from much work stress, less smoking. In a study "Cologne Smoking Study" almost 200 partially seriously ill heart and lung patients and a comparison group of subjects were interviewed. The result amazed the researchers: "The higher the occupational burden, the lower is the nicotine dependence," summarizes Anna Schmidt from the University of Cologne. The result is amazing, but leaves a lot of room for interpretation, according to Schmidt.

The team led by project leader Jürgen Wolf, the spokesman of the Virtual Institute for Interdisciplinary Prevention Research in Medicine (VIIRPM), and his deputy professor dr. Holger Pfaff from the Institute for Medical Sociology, Health Services Research and Rehabilitation Science (IMVR), randomly examined almost 200 partially severely ill lung cancer and heart patients and a control group. The Cologne Smoking Study (CoSmoS) project is a part of the overall project, according to the faculty's interest „Psychosocial analysis“ and is borne and sponsored by the Helmholtz Association. According to its own statements, the Helmholtz Association is the largest scientific organization in Germany with a total of 16 research centers and has a budget of three billion euros annually. In the study, which ran from fall 2004 to fall 2007, the researchers found that nicotine abuse decreases when work stress is high.

A major role is certainly the now enforced smoking ban at the workplaces. Whereby it is not clear whether people would smoke more at home in their free time. Whether biochemical processes in the organism or time issues play a role, would have to show further studies in the future. The view of the cancer patients is of course also very subjective, says diploma nurse Anna Schmidt, who also worked on the study, to consider.

On the other hand, "people no longer have the opportunity to smoke when one appointment drives another," says Schmidt. There would simply be no time to smoke a cigarette. However, the results of the scientific comparative sample should not serve to use stress as a patent remedy against smoking. Stress carries numerous health risks for the human organism. Negatively experienced stress (distress) can lead to physical and psychological problems, depending on duration and intensity. Finally, it can be argued that people with many appointments simply do not have enough time to smoke a lot. (sb, Thorsten Fischer, 13.04.2010)

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