[Attitudes to tobacco smoking among Warsaw's physicians]

Physicians in the majority of countries in which tobacco-smoking has successfully been reduced stopped smoking themselves as the first professional group. Physician's attitude towards smoking patients plays an important role. Sometimes a single medical consultation helps some tobacco-abused patients to quit smoking for ever. However, the time of such a consultation should be adequately long. Out of all methods to control smoking such a consultation has the widest social extend and produces the most favourable effect; about 3% of the tobacco abusers quit smoking. These results are even better if physician consultation is supplemented with other activities such as supply with proper literature, reference to antinicotine center and return to the subject at any further consultation. It means that half a million smokers would quit this habit if every physician employed in the primary carek in Poland would have consulted each smoking patient. We attempted to check physician's attitude towards tobacco-smoking and their activity in this field.