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OBJECTIVE: We investigated smoking cessation rates in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients throughout Europe; current and as compared to earlier EUROASPIRE surveys, and we studied characteristics of successful quitters.METHODS: Analyses were done on 7998 patients from the EUROASPIRE-IV survey admitted for myocardial infarction, unstable angina and coronary revascularisation. Self-reported smoking status was validated by measuring carbon monoxide in exhaled air.RESULTS: Thirty-one percent of the patients reported being a smoker in the month preceding hospital admission for the recruiting event, varying from 15% in centres from Finland to 57% from centres in Cyprus. Smoking rates at the interview were also highly variable, ranging from 7% to 28%. The proportion of successful quitters was relatively low in centres with a low number of pre- event smokers. Overall, successful smoking cessation was associated with increasing age (OR 1.50; 95% CI 1.09-2.06) and higher levels of education (OR 1.38; 95% CI 1.08-1.75). Successful quitters more frequently reported that they had been advised (56% vs. 47%, p < .001) and to attend (81% vs. 75%, p < .01) a cardiac rehabilitation programme.CONCLUSION: Our study shows wide variation in cessation rates in a large contemporary European survey of CHD patients. Therefore, smoking cessation rates in patients with a CHD event should be interpreted in the light of pre-event smoking prevalence, and caution is needed when comparing cessation rates across Europe. Furthermore, we found that successful quitters reported more actions to make healthy lifestyle changes, including participating in a cardiac rehabilitation programme, as compared with persistent smokers.
Simuda Nyuma is the title of a trilogy written during the 1930s by Ham Mukasa (1870-1956), who was an important chief of Baganda - a kingdom in south-central Uganda. Being highly educated and one of the first literate in the region, Mukasa wrote about the lives of three kings that ruled Buganda from ca. 1850 until the 1930s. Inside Mukasa’s family collection, which includes photographs, books, manuscripts and documents, curator Andrea Stultiens found a list with descriptions for illustrations. These illustrations were meant to be shown in the trilogy on the life of the three kings, but were never created. Intrigued by this document, Stultiens assigned Ugandan and Dutch artists to interpret and create the illustrations. As a result, the book presents the story of Ham Mukasa via a combination of documents from the family archive and new illustrations from various contemporary artists, which place the unknown history into today’s setting.
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