Factors associated with smoking in student nurses

Smoking among health care workers such as nurses is of particular importance because it may influence the way that they approach the problem of smoking among their patients and affect the perception of smoking in the general public. A survey was carried out of 117 female and 29 male student nurses at a London Hospital with the aim of improving understanding of factors associated with smoking in this group. Nurses who smoked acknowledged the global health risks of smoking to the same extent as non-smokers but were less likely to acknowledge immediate negative aspects and more likely to believe that smoking conferred benefits. Among smokers, desire to stop was related to beliefs about the health risks and immediate negative aspects of smoking but not doubts about possible beneficial effects of smoking. Ninety per cent of the smokers had started smoking prior to nurse training. There was no evidence that beliefs about smoking changed during nurse training but nurses more advanced in their training were less likely to be smokers. There was no difference in prevalence of smoking between nurses undertaking general (34.5%) versus psychiatric (33.3%) training. The data indicate that taking up smoking mostly occurs prior to starting nursing and that a heightened awareness of the health risks of smoking is enough to make student nurses want to stop but not enough to enable many of them achieve this aim. Dispelling beliefs about some of the beneficial effects of smoking may provide an appropriate target for health education messages directed at nurses.