Abstract
Tobacco-attributable deaths in South Africa have increased since 1990, yet data are scanty from healthcare settings. Internationally, emergency centre (EC) visits are increasingly utilised as opportunities for health risk behaviour screening and intervention, but this is not the case in South Africa. Effective advocacy for these services requires data on the prevalence and correlates of tobacco use among South African EC patients. The study objectives were to investigate tobacco prevalence and associated factors in ECs. Demographics, hospital presentation and substance use data were collected as part of a screening and brief intervention programme for alcohol and drugs in three ECs. We conducted descriptive statistics and utilised logistic regression to examine the associations of demographics, presenting complaint and substance use with moderate–high risk-tobacco use as the dependent variable. Of 12,522 patients screened, 37.0% used tobacco and 35.7% showed moderate–high risk for tobacco-related harms. Factors associated with tobacco-related harms included male gender and moderate–high risk for other substances. Of the patients who met criteria and received an intervention for alcohol or drugs, 65.5% were at moderate–high risk for tobacco-related harms. Given the high prevalence of tobacco use among patients attending ECs, intervening on this platform has the potential to reduce risk for non-communicable disease.
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Funding
This work was supported through the DELTAS Africa Initiative [DEL-15-01]. The DELTAS Africa Initiative is an independent funding scheme of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and supported by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) with funding from the Wellcome Trust [DEL-15-01] and the UK government. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AAS, NEPAD Agency, Wellcome Trust or the UK government.
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Ethical approval for an overall programme evaluation study was granted by the Western Cape Provincial Health Research Committee (WC_2017RP39_880) and the Human Research Ethics Committee at a South African university.
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van der Westhuizen, C., Malan, M., Naledi, T. et al. Tobacco Use in South African Emergency Centre Patients: Opportunities for Intervention. Int J Ment Health Addiction 17, 1229–1236 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-0042-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-0042-2