Background: This study describes the sociodemographic characteristics, health-related lifestyle, and history of tobacco consumption of the occasional smokers in Spain, and examines whether they show differences against daily smokers.
Methods: Data were obtained from the National Health Survey of Spain, carried out in 1993 through household interviews on a sample representative of the non-institutionalised population aged 16 year and older. Analyses were performed with logistic regression and adjusted for sociodemographic, health-state and life-style variables.
Results: Out of the 6,668 smokers in the survey, occasional smokers were 9.2%, while daily smokers of < or = 5 cigarettes and > 5 cigarettes were 9.9% and 80.9%, respectively. As compared with daily smokers of > 5 cigarettes, occasional smokers were more frequently women (odds ratio (0R): 2.12; CI95%: 1.72-2.61), younger (OR aged 25-44 versus 16-24 years: 0.75; 0.58-0.96), with lower alcohol consumption (p for linear trend: 0.0349), and higher leisure-time physical activity (p for linear trend: < 0.0001). On the day they smoke, occasional smokers used to consume less cigarettes than daily smokers (p < 0.0001). Occasional smokers were more frequent among young smokers (aged less than 20) with relatively short history of tobacco consumption (less than 20 years), and also among older smokers (aged 65 year and older) with longer history of consumption (over 50 years). Daily smokers of < or = 5 cigarettes showed characteristics midway between those of occasional and daily smokers of > 5 cigarettes.
Conclusions: Occasional smokers show sociodemographic characteristics, health-related lifestyle, and history of tobacco consumption different from daily smokers. Such differences suggest that research and intervention programs specifically tailored to occasional smokers should be developed.