[Knowledge and attitudes to the tobacco problem among Danish physicians, nurses and midwives in 1989]

In an investigation including 2,233 Danish doctors, nurses and midwives between 72 and 96% replied that they found definite proof of connections between smoking and the diseases: cancer of the lung, cardiac infarction and chronic bronchitis. The highest percentages were found among doctors and, in all three instances, among nonsmokers. Approximately 2/3 of the persons questioned felt inconvenienced by other peoples' tobacco smoke. Even among health staff, there were, surprisingly enough, often problems between smokers and non-smokers. The majority of persons questioned considered that Danish hospitals and places of work for health staff should be free from smoke, so that none of the staff smoked at work. Half of the doctors and 3/4 of the nurses and midwives replied that they received insufficient teaching about the deleterious effects of tobacco smoking on health. All of the participants were unanimous that future campaigns against the tobacco problem in the population should be concentrated on prevention of recruitment of new smokers and increase of information about the deleterious effects of tobacco on health. As health staff constitute a very important group in the future campaigns against tobacco, we have obtained the impression from the questionnaire investigation that a thorough debate is necessary about how to solve the problem of tobacco smoking in Danish hospitals and other places of employment of health staff.