[PRETAGREF study: Prevalence of tobacco use and factors associated with smoking cessation in kidney transplant recipients]

Introduction: Tobacco use increases the risk of mortality, cancers and cardiovascular diseases in transplanted patients. Transplanted patients are encouraged to quit tobacco use before and after renal transplantation. This study was carried out to evaluate the prevalence of tobacco consumption in transplanted patients in one French region. This survey was also conducted to identify factors associated with failure in smoking cessation.

Materials and method: A questionnaire was sent by mail to transplanted patients followed in our center between the 1/01/95 and the 31/12/10. A second mail was sent to increase the response rate.

Results: During the study period, 544 questionnaires were sent to kidney transplant recipients. Among these 544 patients, there were 362 responders. Of these 362 patients, 121 patients (33.4%) were past smokers, and 21 (5.8%) were active smokers. Among the smokers, 20% were exposed to second-hand smoke, 48% had criteria for tobacco moderate to high dependency, and 13.4% were addicted to alcohol. In the multivariate analysis, exposure to second-hand smoke and living alone at home were associated with failure in smoking cessation.

Conclusion: This study shows that the prevalence of tobacco use is not high in transplanted patients. Only 6% of our patients report tobacco use at the study time. Environmental factors are associated with failure in tobacco cessation. Living alone and exposure to second-hand smoke are associated with smoking. Therefore, in transplantation centers, programs devoted to tobacco cessation should be implemented and should take care of patients' lifestyle.