Information about the smoking status is vital for identifying patients in the risk group for disease onset. Electronic health records (EHR) allow for assessing how often doctors question patients about their smoking status and obtaining information about the prevalence of smoking among patients.

OBJECTIVE

To assess how often doctors of various specialties register the smoking status of patients in electronic health records at outpatient and inpatient appointments.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We used the EHR database of primary medical appointments for patients over 18 years seeking outpatient care (80.090 EHRs) or admitted to Almazov National Medical Research Centre (44.077 EHRs) from 2018 to 2020.

RESULTS

The smoking status is reflected in 33.504 (27.0%) EHRs. The frequency of registering the smoking status of patients significantly varied (p<0.001) between the outpatient (29 448/80 090, 36.8%) and inpatient (4056/44 007, 9.2%)appointments. The frequency of registering the smoking status of patients was the highest among the obstetrics and gynecology doctors (4085/8147, 50.1%), cardiologists (19 591/40 366, 48.5%), and hematologists (2310/4891, 47.2%), and the lowest among surgical doctors. Anesthesiologists-resuscitators, physical therapy doctors, otolaryngologists, and pulmonologists did not register patients’ smoking status in EHRs. The smoking status was more often registered in women (20 760/72 844, 28.5%) than in men (12 710/51 253, 24.8%) (p<0.001) and in young patients (maximum at the age of 20—29 years) than in the elders. According to the analysis of all EHRs, men (15 068/51 253, 29.4%) smoke more often than women (6628/72 844, 9.1%).

CONCLUSION

The frequency of registering the smoking status of patients in EHRs is low (27.0%) and varies significantly between doctor specialties at outpatient or inpatient appointments.