American scientists have found that women who had negative childhood experiences are more likely to smoke cigarettes in adulthood.
Women who have experienced mental or physical abuse in the family home 1,4 times more often than the average person become addicted to nicotine. The risk of starting smoking doubles if one of her parents was in prison during the participant’s childhood.
The researchers came to the above conclusions after conducting the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Questionnaire on seven thousand. people, half of whom were women.
This questionnaire checks whether an event that can be described as mental, physical or neglect has occurred at least once in the respondent’s life.
When analyzing the results, the experts eliminated factors that are known to increase the likelihood of smoking, such as a parent who smokes or consuming alcohol in the month before the study.
The obtained results allowed to state that negative childhood experiences predispose women to smoking in adulthood. This effect did not occur in men.
The study was published in the journal Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy.
Negative childhood experiences increase psychological discomfort in both women and men. Intuitively, it would seem that any person who has had such a bad experience behind them should be more inclined to smoke cigarettes. However, our study found that the risk of smoking only increases in women. Perhaps men who experienced childhood trauma have different ways of dealing with it than women, comments Dr Tara Strine, lead researcher, in the different gender outcomes.
Researchers argue that smoking cessation campaigns and strategies should take into account the relationship between childhood trauma and its associated mental distress, and smoking among women. (PAP)
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