[Attitude and behavior of hospital personnel toward smoking]

Due to a lack of data available at the national level, on smoking behaviour of hospital staff, a survey was carried out in a representative sample of hospitals. This survey, which will be repeated in the future, should enable to evaluate preventive actions at hospital and to measure the implication level of the hospital staff in tobacco prevention. The analysis of data collected among 3082 persons shows that a third of the hospital staff smokes. Among these persons a certain part smoke at their working place, this proportion is varying considerably with the working area in the hospital. The more this area is close to the patient the less is hospital staff smoking. More than one third of the interviewers (37.3%) think that trying to convince people to stop smoking is part of their role: this opinion varies considerably depending on the professional activity in the hospital. In addition a very large majority (81.4%) of the hospital staff considers that it has an exemplary role to play in front of patients. This belief is shared equally by all the different groups of staff. The smoking prevalence among hospital staff is equivalent to that of the general population; this underlines the need and the necessity to realize anti-tobacco campaigns among this health care population. Moreover since the exemplary role they have to play, is very well accepted, preventive actions could rely on a good level of participation.