Introduction:

The COPD.AR Study was conducted between 2014 and 2016 in Argentina to determine the prevalence of COPD in the country. This work was carried out to compare the smoking characteristics of smokers with and without COPD of said study, to know how many of them received medical advice, the characteristics of their previous attempts to quit and their exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

Materials and Methods:

The association between smoking characteristics and COPD was evaluated by Odds Ratio, its 95% confidence interval and p value corresponding to the hypothesis test, using the chi square technique.

Results:

We included 3469 surveys of subjects older than 39 years, 42.2% men. 70.7% were current or former smokers and 53.3% had spirometric characteristics of COPD. 34.7% are current smokers, 73.4% out of which think about quitting; 64% received advice about it and only 7.3% reported having used some treatment. 40.2% of the respondents reported exposure to environmental smoke, and 56.1% reported occupational exposure to tobacco smoke. The majority of COPD.AR smokers smoke less than 20 cigarettes per day; there is a higher prevalence of COPD in men and a higher percentage of never smokers with COPD in women. A high percentage thinks of quitting smoking, a little lower among patients with COPD, who had more previous attempts to quit. Almost half of the subjects did not receive any medical advice and a very low percentage used drugs to quit. There is high exposure to secondhand smoke in homes and workplaces.

Conclusions:

COPD.AR smokers smoke less than 20 cigarettes a day; there are more men, a high percentage want to quit and very few receive medical advice or drugs.