Smoking in Healthcare Professionals and Its Relationship with Their Attitudes Towards Smoking Cessation Techniques in Mexico

Background: Almost a third of smoking population in Mexico reported having received counseling at some point in their life.Objective: To evaluate how knowledge and attitudes towards smoking cessation techniques is affected by the prevalence of smoking and electronic cigarette use in health professionals.Methods: An online survey among healthcare professionals (n=632) from Federal Hospitals and National Health Institutes in Mexico City with a questionnaire evaluating tobacco and electronic cigarette consumption and attitudes towards smoking cessation.Results: 17.4% of the evaluated healthcare professionals were current smokers, 1.5% were current users of electronic cigarette.Only 23.2% of healthcare professionals reported receiving training in smoking cessation techniques and 32.2% thought that electronic cigarette is a method for smoking cessation.Smokers considered more often than non-smokers that healthcare professionals should not give brief intervention for smoking cessation (2= 15.4 p<0.01) and reported that they do not have a major role in smoking cessation (2= 11.1 p<0.01).Conclusion: Smoking in healthcare professionals could adversely affect the probability of giving advice for smoking cessation to their patients.A considerable percentage of HP, smokers and no smokers, consider the electronic cigarette as a valid method of smoking cessation, when scientific evidence of effectiveness or long-term safety is lacking.