Smoking in hospitalised patients.

A survey was conducted in a large inner-city hospital to examine the extent of overt and covert smoking being carried out by patients while they were in hospital. There were 311 patients studied. Twenty percent of all patients tested admitted to smoking during their admission, and another 8% showed expired carbon monoxide levels indicative of recent smoking, but denied they had smoked. The percentage of any one ward that were smoking varied from 4% to 41%. Patients with cardiac and respiratory disease were much more likely to lie about their smoking than those with other diseases. Smokers were more than twice as likely to be readmitted for the same condition than nonsmokers.