The impacts of waterpipe (hookah, narghile) -use on quality of life: a special report

ABSTRACT

Introduction

While waterpipe-use induced deficiency and incapacity have already been extensively explored, its impacts on quality of life (QoL) was rarely raised. The main aim of this Special Report was to briefly highlight the key results of the studies raising the effects of waterpipe-use on smokers’ QoL.

Areas covered

SCOPUS

was consulted on July 3^rd, 2020, using the combination of the following two medical subject headings (MeSH) words: ‘Tobacco, Waterpipe’ AND ‘Quality of Life’. Only English original articles were retained. Merely five studies raised the effects of waterpipe-use on QoL. Studies were performed in Middle East (n = 2), USA (n = 1), Tunisia (n = 1) and ‘Egypt, Morocco, Oman and Jordan’ (n = 1). Conflicting results were reported related to the effects of waterpipe-use on QoL. While four studies concluded that waterpipe-smokers’ have a worse QoL, one study concluded that waterpipe-smokers have a normal QoL.

Expert opinion

This Special Report is a call to encourage future research to identify the real effects of waterpipe-use on QoL.

KEYWORDS:

• Tobacco
• waterpipe
• smoking Water Pipes
• quality of Life
• incapacity
• evaluation Studies as Topic

Article highlights

• Nowadays waterpipe-use is regaining popularity.

• While waterpipe-use induced deficiency and incapacity have been extensively explored, its impacts on quality of life were rarely raised.

• Ignoring the critical effects of waterpipe-use on quality of life will certainly lead to a global public health problem, which physicians can undertake to prevent.

• Only five studies treated the issue of the effects of waterpipe-use on quality of life.

• Conflicting results were reported: while four studies concluded that waterpipe-smokers’ have a worse quality of life, one study concluded that waterpipe-smokers have a normal quality of life.

Declaration of interest

H Ben Saad reports personal fees from AstraZeneca, Saiph, Teriak, Opalia Recordati and Chiesi. The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.