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Asthma - Management
Smoking: What advice should I give someone with asthma?

  • Advise smokers with asthma to stop smoking and provide them with the appropriate help. For more information, see the CKS topic on Smoking cessation.
  • Advise people with asthma to, as far as possible, avoid exposure to tobacco smoke. For parents who smoke and have a child with asthma, this means either stopping smoking (the best option), or not smoking in the same room as the child (or, preferably, not smoking in the house).
Clarification / Additional information
  • Parents and parents-to-be who smoke should be advised about the many adverse effects of smoking on themselves and their children. They should be offered appropriate support to stop smoking.
Basis for recommendation
  • These recommendations are based on the British Guideline on the Management of Asthma: a national clinical guideline [SIGN and BTS, 2009]:
    • The evidence suggests that exposure to tobacco smoke in the home contributes to increased wheezing in infancy, increased risk of persistent asthma, increased severity of childhood asthma, and that starting smoking as a teenager increases the risk that asthma will persist. Active smoking in asthma results in worsening symptoms and decline in lung function, and it may inhibit the short-term response to inhaled or oral corticosteroids (although the mechanism of this effect is not certain) [Thomson et al, 2004].

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