[Survey of the prevalence of smoking in Rumanian teachers]

214 teachers and headmasters of Bucharest high schools were questioned in respect of their smoking habits to find out how widespread smoking is among teachers and how this influences the pupils. 33% of the teachers and 38.9% of the headmasters smoked. 69.2% of the smokers belonged to the age group above 35 years, i.e. the majority, whereas the age group below 20 years included 56.9% smokers. Although 93.8% of the teachers and headmasters are convinced that smoking is harmful to health, 7.4% of them smoke in the classroom and 37% in the presence of pupils. The results of this investigation show that attention should be paid to the smoking habits of teachers since setting a good example for adolescents is as important in the case of teachers as it is in the case of physicians.