Well-being and tobacco smoking statuses of health officers in hospitals under the ministry of public health in Thailand

Coping with stress and negative emotions are Thai people’s primary motives for smoking uptake. As health officers are seen as a well-being role models for Thai people, it is crucial to understand their smoking behaviour. However, there is a research gap in the area of well-being among smoking statuses in Thailand. This research aims to study gender differences in smoking statuses and to compare the well-being of Thai public health officers with different smoking statuses. Using proportional stratified random sampling, the participants comprised 442 public health officers who worked in hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health (294 non-smokers, 95 current smokers, 31 quitting smokers, and 22 former smokers). A well-being questionnaire with a reliability of .96 was used to collect data. The well-being of the participants was measured by the model of subjective well-being (SWB) which contains four components: life satisfaction, job satisfaction, positive emotion, and negative emotion. The result of the study showed that gender differences had impacts on smoking. Furthermore, there was a significant difference in well-being among people with different smoking statuses at the statistical level of .01 (Wilks’ Lambda = .94). Former smokers had the highest overall well-being, followed by quitting smokers, non-smokers, and smokers, respectively.