Temporal changes of under-reporting of cigarette consumption in population-based studies

Abstract

The difference in cigarette consumption between legal sale and self-reported data has substantially increased over the last two decades in Italy, reflecting increasing under-reporting of cigarette consumption mainly due to a decreasing social acceptability of smoking. Comparisons between interview-based and legal sale data are complicated by factors such as smuggling control and changes in the population (eg, increased proportion of immigrants); however these are able to justify only a small proportion of the gap found in Italy.

Understanding the relationship between socioeconomic status, smoking cessation services provided by the health system and smoking cessation behavior in Brazil

“…For example, there may be an increasing tendency to over-report smoking cessation attempts due to the growing stigma of smoking, and also because tobacco use was the main interest of ITC-Brazil investigation 30 .…”

Can a National Lung Cancer Screening Program in Combination with Smoking Cessation Policies Cause an Early Decrease in Tobacco Deaths in Italy?

“…The subdivision of former smokers by time since quitting was obtained from DOXA's 2001 to 2010 surveys on smoking habits for representative samples of the Italian population aged 15 years or more (DOXA is the Italian branch of the Gallup International Association; ref. 20). Sex and age-specific cessation probabilities were estimated for each year in the period 1986 to 2009 by selecting the set of parameters that best reproduced the age-specific observed smoking prevalence (5,6).…”

Which group of smokers is more vulnerable to the economic crisis?

“…This result may be affected by misreporting of smoking behaviours, which has been shown to be substantial in previous studies 24, 25 and also in Italy. 26 For instance, in a confidential exit questionnaire of a trial for smoking cessation, 26% of 129 adolescents admitted to have under-reported and 15% to have over-reported smoking quantity and frequency during the study. 24 Moreover, also in a similar study based on 51 adolescent smokers, under-reporting (16%) was much more common than over-reporting (4%).…”