[Status and attitude to smoking in 1,214 nurses in Beijing]

Smoking in medical professionals is increasingly attracted attention to. A lot of studies on smoking in physicians at home have been reported, but few in nurses. In order to understand current status of smoking and trend of its changes in nurses, 1,214 female nurses in five hospitals of Beijing were interviewed on their smoking in 1993. Results showed an average proportion of smoking of 7.4%, 7.3% in urban and 7.9% in rural hospitals. As compared with the results of a survey conducted five years ago (with an average proportion of smoking of 1.6%), proportion of smoking in nurses increased obviously. Proportion of smoking quitting was very low (3.3%) in nurses, although most of them could recognize harmfulness of smoking and publicize it to patients.