Smoking prevalence and associated risk factors among healthcare professionals in Nicosia general hospital, Cyprus: a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

Background

In recent years, a significant progress has been achieved globally in reduction of smoking among physicians and nurses, however, in some countries the smoking prevalence of health professionals is maintained at very high levels, without significant difference from the general population. This study aims to investigate the prevalence of smoking among physicians and nurses working at Nicosia General Hospital, as well as their knowledge and attitudes towards smoking cessation strategies.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study. The study consisted of 119 doctors and 392 nurses currently working at Nicosia General Hospital in Cyprus. Study participants were recruited from all hospital wards between May and June 2008. Both physicians and nurses were asked to answer an anonymous questionnaire, which included questions regarding their smoking habits, knowledge and attitudes about smoking and smoking cessation strategies.

Results

Overall smoking prevalence among healthcare professionals was 28.2 % (28.6 % among physicians and 28.1 % among nurses). Multivariate analysis revealed that being male, younger than 34 years old, unmarried and with a family history of smoking were associated with increased likelihood of being a current smoker. An impressive 72 % of current smokers reported that they wished to quit smoking, however, only 5.6 % of physicians and 6.9 % of nurses, reported ever using any smoking cessation aids. Never- smokers counseled their patients to quit smoking more often (96.4 %) compared to former (84.6 %) and current smokers (72.7 %), ( p < 0.001). In addition, those who felt more confident about their knowledge regarding smoking cessation, reported counseling their patients to quit smoking more often compared to those who did not (92 % vs 60 %, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Smoking prevalence among physicians and nurses working at Nicosia General Hospital was similar to that of the general Cypriot population. Further training of healthcare professionals towards smoking cessation strategies is needed in order to improve their knowledge and consequently their efforts on counseling and support to their patients who wish to quit smoking.

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Most cited references 25

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Cigarette smoking and lung cancer: chemical mechanisms and approaches to prevention.

Stephen S. Hecht (2002)

Much is now known about the carcinogens in cigarette smoke, their conversion to forms that react with DNA, and the miscoding properties of the resulting DNA adducts that cause the many genetic changes known to exist in human lung cancer. The chronic exposure of pulmonary DNA to a multitude of metabolically activated carcinogens is consistent with our current understanding of cancer as a disease resulting from many changes in key genes regulating growth. This review illustrates how this solid foundation of knowledge can be used to find new ways to prevent lung cancer. Three prevention-related topics are discussed: human uptake of tobacco carcinogens as a way of assessing risk and investigating mechanisms; individual differences in the metabolic activation and detoxification of carcinogens, which may relate to cancer susceptibility; and chemoprevention of lung cancer in smokers and ex-smokers. These new approaches are necessary as adjuncts to education and cessation efforts, which despite some success have not eliminated tobacco smoking.

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Mortality from cancer in relation to smoking: 50 years observations on British doctors

R Doll, R. Peto, J Boreham … (2005)

A total of 34 439 male British doctors, who reported their smoking habits in November 1951, were followed, with periodic up date of changes in their habits, until death, emigration, censoring. or November 2001. Information was obtained about their mortality from 28 of the 30 types of cancer in men reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (no death was recorded from the other two). In all, 11 of the 13 types in men that the Agency classed as liable to be caused by smoking were significantly related to smoking and the findings for the other two, which caused only few deaths, suggested they might be. Of the 13 types in men for which the Agency found only sparse or inconsistent data and for which we had data, only two appeared to be possibly related (one positively, one negatively), and the 638 deaths for the summed group were clearly unrelated to smoking. Of the two types for which the Agency thought that the relationship with smoking might be due to bias or confounding, the findings for one (prostate cancer) tended to support the belief that smoking was unrelated, and those for the other (colorectal cancer) showed a weak relationship with smoking, which (in a small subset) could not be attributed to confounding with the consumption of alcohol.

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Physician smoking status, attitudes toward smoking, and cessation advice to patients: an international survey.

Robert J. Reid, Andrew Pipe, Michelle Sorensen (2008)

The smoking status of physicians can impact interactions with patients about smoking. The 'Smoking: The Opinions of Physicians' (STOP) survey examined whether an association existed between physician smoking status and beliefs about smoking and cessation and a physician's clinical interactions with patients relevant to smoking cessation, and perceptions of barriers to assisting with quitting. General and family practitioners across 16 countries were surveyed via telephone or face-to-face interviews using a convenience-sample methodology. Physician smoking status was self-reported. Of 4473 physicians invited, 2836 (63%) participated in the survey, 1200 (42%) of whom were smokers. Significantly fewer smoking than non-smoking physicians volunteered that smoking was a harmful activity (64% vs 77%; P<0.001). More non-smokers agreed that smoking cessation was the single biggest step to improving health (88% vs 82%; P<0.001) and discussed smoking at every visit (45% vs 34%; P<0.001). Although more non-smoking physicians identified willpower (37% vs 32%; P<0.001) and lack of interest (28% vs 22%; P<0.001) as barriers to quitting, more smoking physicians saw stress as a barrier (16% vs 10%; P<0.001). Smoking physicians are less likely to initiate cessation interventions. There is a need for specific strategies to encourage smoking physicians to quit, and to motivate all practitioners to adopt systematic approaches to assisting with smoking cessation.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Stavri Zinonos: (+357) 22895270/99087737 , zinonos.stavri@ucy.ac.cy

Theodora Zachariadou: andthe@cytanet.com.cy

Savvas Zannetos: zannetos@gmail.com

Andrie G. Panayiotou: andrie.panayiotou@cut.ac.cy

Andreas Georgiou: angeorgiou@mphs.moh.gov.cy

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Tob Induc Dis

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Tob Induc Dis

Title: Tobacco Induced Diseases

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Print): 2070-7266

ISSN (Electronic): 1617-9625

Publication date (Electronic): 7 April 2016

Publication date PMC-release: 7 April 2016

Publication date Collection: 2016

Volume: 14

Electronic Location Identifier: 14

Affiliations

[ ]Health Center of University of Cyprus, Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health in association with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cyprus University of Technology, 1, Panepistimiou Avenue, 2109 Aglantzia, Nicosia Cyprus

[ ]Open University of Cyprus, 33 Giannou Kranidioti Avenue, 2220 Latsia, Nicosia Cyprus

[ ]Cyprus International Institute for Environmental and Public Health in association with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cyprus University of Technology, 95 Eirinis Street, 3041 Limassol, Cyprus

[ ]Respiratory Department Clinic, Nicosia General Hospital, 215 Nicosia – Limassol Old Road, 2029 Strovolos, Nicosia Cyprus

Article

Publisher ID: 79

DOI: 10.1186/s12971-016-0079-6

PMC ID: 4823851

PubMed ID: 27057153

SO-VID: 7fc1e1be-2edd-4a17-b0ef-294b72cb24d2

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 24 July 2015

Date accepted : 31 March 2016

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Respiratory medicine

Keywords: smoking prevalence,healthcare professionals,smoking attitudes

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Respiratory medicine

Keywords: smoking prevalence, healthcare professionals, smoking attitudes

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Smoking prevalence and associated risk factors among healthcare professionals in Nicosia general hospital, Cyprus: a cross-sectional study

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Abstract

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Related collections

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Most cited references 25

Cigarette smoking and lung cancer: chemical mechanisms and approaches to prevention.

Mortality from cancer in relation to smoking: 50 years observations on British doctors

Physician smoking status, attitudes toward smoking, and cessation advice to patients: an international survey.

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