Abstract

CUESTA, Alejandro; KUSTER, Fernando  and  LLUBERAS, Ricardo. Tabaquismo en el Personal y Usuarios de un Hospital Universitario: Consumo y Recomendación de Abandono. Rev.Urug.Cardiol. [online]. 2005, vol.20, n.2, pp.77-85. ISSN 1688-0420.

ABSTRACT Tobacco kills 13 people per day in Uruguay. The Hospital de Clínicas has been declared "Free of smoke". Smoking by the health team (HT) is a major problem because of it´s roll. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the prevalence of smoking among HT and patients, to characterize HT members who smoke, how many smoke inside the hospital and how smoking cessation is advised. METHOD: We have performed an inquiry in May-June 2004 of a sample group including the hospital´s biggest departments. A person was considered smoker if he smoked 1 cigarette/day in the last 6 months. RESULTS: We included 247 patients and 193 HT. Combined 26% were smokers. Of the patients 28% were smokers and of the HT 23% (p=NS); 19% of the patients and 20% of the HT were "current smokers" (p=NS). The proportion of current / any time smokers was lower among patients (31% vs 44%, p = 0.037). Among members of HT with direct patient contact (PC), physicians smoked the most (24%), especially teachers (29%). Thirteen % of all the HT smoked inside the hospital. Teachers who were current smokers were the worse offenders (73%). Among HT-PC 96% said they recommended smoking cessation and the majority of recommended cessation in each patient encounter. Patients confirmed this only 43% of the time and 60% said the HT was not emphatic in their recommendation. CONCLUSIONS: This study estimates the prevalence of smokers to be 26%, without a significant difference between patients and HT and almost the same throughout the country. Among HT-PC physicians are the ones who smoke the most and also who smokes the most inside the hospital. There is a discordance between what the HT recommended and what patients recognized. Thirteen % of the HT smokes inside the hospital.

Keywords : Tobacco; Prevalence; Hospitals; University; Attitude of Health Personnel.

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