From April 2012 to March 2013, general practitioner (GP) BEACH participants recorded the current smoking status of 32,276 patients aged ≥18 years. Over half of the patients had never smoked and one-quarter were previous smokers. A small proportion (3%) described themselves as occasional smokers and 17% were daily smokers. The following differences between groups were all statistically significant as assessed using non-overlapping 95% confidence intervals.
Smoking status of patients
The proportion of females who had never smoked (62%) was higher than that of males (44%); male patients were more likely to be previous, occasional or daily smokers (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Smoking status of patients
Daily smokers
There was a greater proportion of daily smokers among people aged 25–44 years (22%) than in any other age group. The percentage of smokers among patients aged 65–74 years (8%) was less than half that of patients in the younger age groups. Of those aged ≥75 years, 4% were daily smokers. Patients who carried a healthcare card (HCC) were more likely to smoke (22%) than non-HCC holders (14%), and daily smoking was more prevalent among those from an English-speaking background (ESB, 17%) than from a non-English-speaking background (NESB, 13%). Patients were divided into major city, regional and remote residential locations using the Australian Standard Geographical Classification. Those who lived in a major city were less likely to smoke (16%) than those who lived in regional (20%) or remote (26%) areas.
Figure 2. Patient characteristic-specific rates of daily smokers
Competing interests: None.
Provenance and peer review: Commissioned.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the GP participants in the BEACH program and all members of the BEACH team. Financial contributors to BEACH 2012– 2013: Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing; Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs; AstraZeneca Pty Ltd (Australia); CSL Biotherapies Pty Ltd; Merck, Sharp and Dohme (Australia) Pty Ltd; National Prescribing Service Ltd; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Australia Pty Ltd; Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd.