Smoking: Cigarette Small Roll Of Dried Tobacco (Research Paper Sample)

Smoking
Name
Institution of Affiliation
Smoking
Smoking in most countries is associated with cigarette smoking. A cigarette is a small roll of dried tobacco leave that are finely cut. Cigarette smoking, therefore, is an act of inhaling smoke that results from a burned tobacco. This smoke, when inhaled, is absorbed into the blood stream of human beings. Cigarette smoking is one of the leading preventable causes of deaths arising from illness associated with it CITATION CDC17 \l 1033 (CDC, 2017). The first half of the 20th century saw more men than women use tobacco and its products but this fact has changed over the recent years where more women than men smoke tobacco and use tobacco products. According to the CDC’s Smoking and Tobacco Use (2017), cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. These deaths could be prevented if a detailed study on why people start smoking, why it is difficult for smokers to quit and how to effectively handle the withdrawal symptoms experienced by smokers, then the recommendations are implemented.
Smokers in many instances feel they have many justifiable reasons why they should smoke but the dangers arising from smoking outweigh the reasons they think they have. This is because smoking affects nearly every part of the body. In light of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Report (2014), there is sufficient evidence to conclude the existence of causal relationship between smoking and hepatocellular carcinoma that is the cause of liver cancer. Also, smokers are at a higher risk of dying from prostate cancer than non-smokers. Smoking is the lead cause of respiratory diseases in the United States like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Asthma and Tuberculosis. According to the Cancer Research UK (2017), smoking tobacco is estimated to have caused 101,000 deaths in the UK in 2010 which is approximately 18% of all deaths. In 2014, it was estimated that 19% of UK’s population were current smokers.
Stopping tobacco smoking is a very challenging task especially when it has reached the point of addiction. There are withdrawal symptoms that are associated with sudden quitting from tobacco smoking. Withdrawal symptoms are physical or emotional features that manifest after abrupt stopping of smoking tobacco. These physical and emotional features may include depression, headache and weight gain, lack of sleep, low concentration, anxiety and chest pain. The aim of this study was to investigate the most significant withdrawal symptoms faced by smokers as they try to discontinue smoking.
Literature review
The native growing of tobacco began in the North and South America as back as 6000 B.C. It was first introduced by Christopher Columbus. It is said that, when Columbus went to Bahamas he was welcomed by a gift of dried tobacco leaves by the inhabitants of that area at that time. Later, when Columbus went back to Spain, he took with him a bag full of dried tobacco leaves. It was from that time that tobacco began to be increasingly used in the Americas and the rest of the world. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Report (2014), the manufactured form of tobacco known as cigarette has been the dominant form of tobacco use in the United States for only a century.
The US population is the most affected in terms of tobacco smoking and its effects. The Department of Health and Human Services Report (2014) indicated that the prevalence of cigarette smoking was at 42% in 1965 but has significantly reduced to 18% in 2012. The report further showed that 87% of the smoking population start smoking at the age of 18 years. This is a very significant proportion of the US population. Smoking is done by both male and female in the US. In 2012-2013, approximately 21.3% of the United States adult population indicated that they used tobacco products every day or some days while 25.2% indicated that they used tobacco products every day, some days, or rarely CITATION Die14 \l 1033 (Dietz, et al., 2014). Despite significant decrease in the practice of smoking cigarettes among adults in the United States over the last five decades, progress has gone slow in the recent years and use of other tobacco related products has not changed CITATION Die14 \l 1033 (Dietz, et al., 2014).
People state many reasons why they use tobacco in their daily lives or at some point in their life. Some state addiction, social influence, and relieving stress. Addiction is the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite its harmful effects and unwanted consequences CITATION The17 \l 1033 (The American Cancer Society Medical team, 2017). Once a person starts smoking tobacco, it may be very challenging to quit especially when you have reached the addiction stage. According to the American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team (2015), most smokers began smoking at their teen age and those with friends or parents that smoke are more likely to smoke than those who don’t. The team further found out that there are nicotine withdrawal symptoms that are associated with stopping tobacco smoking which may include depression, headache, weight gain, constipation, dizziness, lack of sleep, low concentration, anxiety and chest pain.
In this study, I sought to establish significant withdrawal symptoms that smokers experience when they try to quit smoking. The study was conducted around campus and downtown Bloomington. I expected that depression and muscle aches would be the leading withdrawal symptoms that smokers experiencing when they tried to stop smoking.
Methods
Participants
The study considered a sample of 46 smokers who said that they smoked at least ten cigarettes per day. Out of this sample, 16 of them were female while 30 of them were male. Five days prior to the data collection, posters were designed and posted around campus and downtown Bloomington that requested smokers who smoked at least 1 cigarette per day to volunteer and turn up for this study. The participants were admitted into the study on the ‘first come first served’ basis. When the required sample of 46 was achieved, the admission was closed immediately and the survey began. All of the participants who turned up were of race white and aged between 20 and 58.
Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 1: Sex demographics
sex


Frequency

Percent

Valid Percent

Cumulative Percent

Valid

female

16

34.8

34.8

34.8


male

30

65.2

65.2

100.0


Total

46

100.0

100.0


Procedure
It took 20 minutes before the participants could settle down. All the participants were explained the purpose of the study and assured of confidentiality of their responses. The participants were each supplied with a copy of questionnaire that was used as the main instrument for collecting data in this study with a pen. They were given up to 2 hours to fill up the questionnaire. The following questions were covered in the questionnaire.
Demographic Variables
Demographic variables such as sex, age and race of the respondent were required. These variable were to help us determine smoking preference according to sex, race and age.
Number of Cigarettes per Day
The participants were required to indicate of the number of cigarettes that they smoked per day. Specifically, they were asked one item with an example being: Cigarettes per day.
This was the dependent variable of this study.
Hypothesis
H01: There is no significant effect of muscle ache on smokers after abrupt withdrawal
H02: There is no significant effect of depression on smokers after abrupt withdrawal
Withdrawal Symptoms
Participants were also asked to indicate how they felt whenever they tried to discontinue smoking. First, they were required to indicate how many times they had tried to stop smoking or if they had a plan of quitting soon. They were then asked to indicate the withdrawal symptoms that they experienced like restlessness, weight gain, heart rate, and vomiting. Lastly, participants reported demographic information such as their gender, race/ethnicity that were tested for classification purposes.
Results
I carried out Wilcoxon –Mann Whitney /Mann- Whiney U test which is a non-parametric test because of the nature of the data. The data was not normally distributed. The independent variable, Nicotine deprivation, was nominal and had two levels; deprived and not deprived. The dependent variables, Muscle aches and Depression, were both ordinal variables with four levels each. The data satisfied all the assumptions of Mann- Whiney U test.
Firstly, I carried out a Mann- Whiney U test on Muscle aches and Nicotine deprivation and obtained the results. Secondly, I carried out Mann- Whiney U test on Depression and Nicotine deprivation and obtained the results which are recorded below. All the test were done on SPSS.
Muscle Aches
In this part, I carried out a Mann-Whiney U test on Muscle aches and Nicotine deprivation and obtained the following results.
Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 2: Table of Ranks
Ranks


Manipulation of nicotine deprivation

N

Mean Rank

Sum of Ranks

When stop have muscle aches

not deprived

25

20.38

509.50


deprived

21

27.21

571.50


Total

46



Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 3: Mann-Whitney U Test Results
Test Statisticsa


When stop have muscle aches

Mann-Whitney U

184.500

Wilcoxon W

509.500

Z

-2.610

A...