Prevalence of cigarette smoking in a group of male veterans with chronic spinal cord injury

Male veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI) were surveyed regarding their smoking history. Subjects (n = 250) were placed in one of two categories: never smokers (smoked ≤100 cigarettes in lifetime), or ever smokers (divided into former smokers, quit smoking for >1 year, or current smokers). Never smokers constituted 23.2%, and ever smokers constituted 76.8% of the sample. Among the ever smokers, 59.4% had quit, compared with 49.1% in the general population (p < 0.005). In the former smokers, 23% had quit before injury, 24% quit within 1 year of injury, and the remaining 53% quit >1 year after injury. In this sample veteran SCI population, the number of current smokers is comparable to that found in the general population. The lower number of never smokers with SCI (23.2%) compared with the general population (49.9%) most likely reflects the smoking habits of a veteran population.