The 1989 Kentucky Hospital Smoking Policy Survey

Kentucky leads the nation in percentage of smokers (32.5%), years of potential life lost due to smoking-related illness, and burley tobacco production. In view of this, we sought to determine current practice regarding smoking policies in Kentucky hospitals. Acute care and psychiatric hospitals were identified through the 1988 Kentucky Hospital Association Directory and the Paired Community Laboratory System. One hundred seven institutions were sent standardized questionnaires. An additional 16 hospitals were contacted by phone only. All mail and telephone surveys were directed towards the institution's president, administrative director, or CEO. Eighty-one (75.7%) of those contacted by mail responded to the survey. The 26 non-responding institutions were then contacted through a telephone survey. Thus, 100% of acute care hospitals in Kentucky participated in the survey. Of the 123 institutions surveyed, 110 (89.4%) have some type of smoking policy. Of those 110 hospitals with smoking policies, only 6 totally prohibited smoking on the premises. The 13 hospitals without any form of policy were queried about future plans for smoking policies. Of these, only 4 had no plans to work on a hospital smoking policy. Of the 123 hospitals surveyed, 100 do not sell tobacco products. There were no statistically significant differences between the numbers of beds, average length of stay, occupancy rate, or county populations in Kentucky hospitals that do not sell tobacco versus those hospitals that do sell tobacco.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)