[A study of the tobacco habit in a general hospital]

Health professionals are the individuals with the greatest capacity to influence the population on smoking habit. Unfortunately, recent statistics, report that this professional group smoke as much if not more than the rest of the population, thus difficulting the reduction of this social problem. In order to evaluate smoking habit in our hospital, we presented a study on the prevalence and attitude of smoking habit in all the personnel working in our hospital. We were negatively surprised that after several public campaigns on the subject, the prevalence of smoking amongst the hospital personnel.