ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOR TOWARDS SMOKING AMO NG CHILEAN PHYSICIANS

The aim of this work was to study the prevalence, behavior and opinion s towards smoking in a sample of 288 physicians from Santiago, stratif ied according to sex and specialty. The WHO Europe questionnaire was a pplied and smoker was defined as the person that consumed one or more cigarettes per day. Thirty six percent of the sample (40.2% of men and 23.8% of women) smoked an average of 9 cigarettes per day, compared t o the figure of 28.3% obtained in a similar study in 1983. Fifty perce nt of smokers felt that they will not quit No differences in knowledge about problems associated to smoking or forbidding smoking in hospita ls, were observed between smokers and non-smokers. A majority of smoke rs did not smoke in front of their patients and did not allow smoking in their private clinics. It is concluded that, although a high propor tion of physicians continue to smoke, their opinions and behavior will support smoking cessation efforts.