[A survey on current attitudes to smoking in health care workers in Italy]

Prevalence of smoking among healthcare workers has been steadily decreasing in recent years but is still higher than in the general population. This may have a negative impact in the process of recognizing smoking as the major avoidable cause of morbidity and mortality.

In this study we evaluated the prevalence and the attitudes to smoking in healthcare workers, divided into inpatient and outpatient staff in order to assess the possible role of stress in favouring smoking.

A standardized questionnaire on smoking was submitted to all employees of the "Istituti Clinici di Perfezionamento", a public hospital in Milan, Italy, covering 1597 subjects.

An overall number of 383 subject (24%) answered the questionnaire. Thirty (7.8%) were non-smokers and not exposed to second-hand smoking, 175 (45.7%) were non-smokers but exposed to second-hand smoking, 79 (20.6%) were ex-smokers, and 99 (25.8%) were current smokers. The comparison between inpatient and outpatient staff did not reveal any significant diferences. As to smoking attitudes, 29 subjects (29.3%) were not interested in quitting, 26 (26.3%) tried unsuccessfully to quit, 27 (27.3%) believed they could succeed in quitting, and 17 (17.2%) wanted to quit but did not know how. Also in this case there were no significant differences between inpatient and outpatient staff.

These findings confirm the decrease in the prevalence of smoking observed in recent years in healthcare professionals but suggest the need to continue information, counselling and medical support campaigns aimed at achieving cessation of smoking.