Smoking habits of primary health care physicians in Bahrain

A survey of the smoking habits of all primary health care physicians in Bahrain was carried out to determine their smoking habits and attitudes towards smoking. Sixty-four male doctors and fifty-eight female doctors returned a voluntary self-completed questionnaire resulting in an 80.8% response rate. Male physicians were older than their female counterparts and had a higher proportion of ever-smokers (45.3%), smokers (26.6%), ex-smokers (18.8%) and daily smokers (18.8%). Cigarette smoking was the predominant type of smoking. The ratio of daily smoking prevalence (doctors/general population) among Bahraini citizens was 0.83 for males, 0.45 for females and 0.65 for both sexes combined. Of the smokers, 80% have considered quitting and 83.3% of them had made a serious attempt to quit. All the never-smokers perceived themselves as non-smokers in the coming five years compared to 83.3% of the ever-smokers. Among the perceived reasons for not smoking, primary health care physicians gave the highest importance to protecting their own health and setting a good example to children. Never-smokers gave more importance than ever-smokers to all the reasons for not smoking except for the occurrence of certain symptoms.