Prevalence and influences on smoking in people with learning disabilities

The people attending the three local
social education centres (SECs) and those
attending the “Into Independence” and
“Community Access” courses at the local
technical college who smoked were identified.
A questionnaire on knowledge and
attitude to smoking was then given to
each smoker as well as to a group of
matched controls (matched on age sex and
approximate degree of learning disability
who attended the same facility). A similar
questionnaire was also given to the carers
of the smokers and the carers of the controls.
It was found that the overall prevalence
rate of smoking was only two percent,
and that there was no significant difference
in the knowledge about smoking
between the smokers and controls; however,
the smokers were significantly more
likely to live with someone