Longitudinal evaluation of the quality of life of smoking motorcycle taxi drivers.

The quality of life (QoL) of traffic and transit workers has been a focus of much attention; motorcyclists are the workers most susceptible to accidents and exposure to pollutants. These factors added to smoking might result in respiratory disorders and influence the workers' QoL.To analyze the QoL of smoking or not motorcycle taxi drivers.Longitudinal and epidemiological study with quantitative approach conducted with 95 motorcycle taxi drivers from Jatai, southeastern Goias, Brazil, in two stages in 2014 and 2015. We administered a questionnaire to collect sociodemographic and occupational data and self-perceived state of health, and WHOQOL-BREF. Statistical analysis was performed with software Statistical Package for Social Sciences and STATA; the significance level was set to p<0.05.Most participants were male (98.9%), nonsmokers (89.5%), had already suffered work accidents (67.4%); their average age was 39.1 years old, and 48.5% described their state of health as good. The score on the physical health domain of QoL decreased (from 86.07 to 74.28; p=0.091) and the one on the environment domain increased (from 58.43 to 64.06; p=0.285) among smokers. Also among nonsmokers the score on domain physical health decreased (from 79.87 to 76.38; p=0.014) and the one on domain environment increased (from 58.27 to 67.32; p<0.001). We found association of age and smoking with QoL domain physical health (p=0.014; 0.027).Motorcycle taxi drivers are exposed to several factors which might influence their living and working conditions. New public health policies targeting this population of workers are needed.