[Smoking in health care workers. Identification of related factors]

The objective of this study was to determine the epidemiology of smoking among health care givers in our setting and to describe their characteristics. We gave an anonymous questionnaire to 566 health care workers in the Valencian Community (248 physicians, 212 nurses and 106 aides). The results were as follows. Physicians: 46.4% were smokers, 25.4% were non smokers and 28.2% were ex-smokers. Most (69.3%) smoked 11 to 20 cigarettes/day. Low scores on Fagerström's test were recorded for 93%, and 57.3% have tried to quit smoking more than 5 times. The likelihood of being and ex-smoker increased with age (r = 0.158; p = 0.012) and with the number of attempts to quit (r = 0.170; p = 0.021). Nurses: 34.4% were smokers, 36.3% were non smokers and 29.2% were ex-smokers. The degree of nicotine addiction was low for 91.8% and 83% of the smokers and ex-smokers had tried at least once to quit smoking. Aides: 32% were smokers, 42.5% were non smokers and 25.5% were ex-smokers. The degree of addiction was low for 79.4% and 78.7% had tried to quit smoking at least once. The likelihood of being an ex-smoker increased with the number of attempts at quitting (r = 0.448; p = 0.000). In conclusion, we found that rate of smoking was higher than expected for persons who understand the related problems. The low level of physical addiction and the high number of times the subjects had tried to stop smoking suggest the need to create a program specifically to help health care workers in this respect.