Perceptions of Blindness Related to Smoking
This cross-sectional survey used a structured interview to explore the level of knowledge of the link between smoking and eye disease and the likely impact of that knowledge among UK patients attending ophthalmic and other outpatient departments. Subjects were asked about their awareness of a link between smoking and four smoking-attributable conditions (lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and blindness) and a “distractor” condition (deafness). The response rate was 89.1 percent (358/402). In all, 183 (51.1 percent) responders were male and 175 (48.9 percent) female. Only 9.5 percent of patients believed that smoking was definitely or probably a cause of blindness, compared with 92.2 percent for lung cancer, 87.6 percent for heart disease, and 70.6 percent for stroke. Patients ranked their fear of each of the five conditions, scoring five for the most feared and one for the least feared. Patients were significantly less fearful of blindness (mean score 2.80) than lung cancer (3.89), heart disease (3.58), and stroke (3.35). About one-half of smokers stated that they would definitely or probably quit smoking if they developed early signs of blindness or the three established smoking-related conditions, with no significant differences in proportions for these four conditions. Awareness of the risk of blindness from smoking is low, but the fear of blindness is as compelling a motivation to quit as fear of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke. The link between smoking and eye disease should be communicated to help reduce smoking prevalence
