Background: According to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision, tobacco dependence is coded by group F17 - Mental and behavioral disorders due to use of tobacco. There are other codes for diagnoses and conditions associated with tobacco use. The aim of our analysis was to determine how often these codes are reported in clinical practice.
Methods and results: We observed the incidence of diagnoses F17, P04.2, Z72.0 or T65.2 in years 2002-2011 in hospitalized patients and the F17 diagnosis in patients of psychiatric health facilities. According to data from the Institute of Health Information and Statistics of the Czech Republic diagnoses indicating smoking patients were reported in 1.5% of hospitalized patients in 2011, although the prevalence of smoking in the population is around 30% in last 15 years. Smoking-related diagnoses were reported in 2.1% of cases in Internal medicine departments. Codes F17, T65.2 and Z72.0 occurred as an accessory diagnose in vascular brain disease in 1.8% of hospitalizations and for respiratory tract neoplasms (dg. C32-C34) it was 7.1% of hospitalizations.
Conclusions: These results demonstrate the underestimation of the importance of smoking and its relationship to clinical disciplines. Although it is one of the most common diseases in the population with a direct relation to fatal diseases of civilization, the information on its incidence is not used in clinical practice.