Cigarette smoking among young physicians and their approach to the smoking problem of their patients

We have undertaken a survey of 100 interns and 100 residents at University of Ankara Medical School to find out their smoking rates as well as their view of the smoking problem in Turkey and their approach to the patient who smokes. The smoking rate of interns and residents were comparable to those of the 146 nonmedical university students surveyed at the same time (31% and 37% versus 38%). Our results indicate that smoking residents have less confidence in their efficacy to influence the patients to quit smoking when compared to nonsmokers (34.2% versus 14.5%; p < 0.05). Likewise, they have a higher, though not significant, tendency not to counsel their patients than those who are not smoking. Therefore we conclude that a successful smoking cessation program in Turkey requires encouragement of the medical students and residents to quit smoking and better training of them with regard to smoking intervention methods in order to increase their confidence of efficacy.