SMOKING-HABITS AND CESSATION PROGRAM IN AN AUSTRALIAN TEACHING HOSPITAL

Background: Data on prevalence of cigarette smoking by hospital employ ees are limited in Australia, but anecdotal evidence suggests that man y health sector employees continue to smoke despite abundant evidence regarding the harmful effects of this habit. Nicotine is an addictive drug and arguably this should be known better in the health industry t han in any other industry. Despite having this knowledge at their disp osal, health sector employers rarely provide assistance to employees, relying instead on restrictive policies to reduce smoking in the workp lace. Methods: To assist employees to quit smoking, we instituted a me dium intensity Stop Smoking Programme, run by a clinical pharmacist of fering nicotine patches and support on a weekly basis. A principal aim of the service was to redress the imbalance between the availability of cigarettes and the most effective nicotine replacement therapy, the trandermal nicotine patch. Following 18 months operation of this serv ice, we surveyed hospital employees to ascertain smoking rates and vie ws on smoking cessation in this South Australian teaching hospital. Re sults: In the first 18 months of operation, 111 staff members availed themselves of the service. At the first follow up period (three months ), 21 were not contactable, 29 were successful in not smoking and 61 w ere still smoking. Six of the 29 who were not smoking at three months resumed smoking by six months, and a further four resumed smoking by 1 2 months. At the time of this report, 12 of the remaining 19 non smoke rs had completed two years since quitting and a further three of these had resumed regular smoking by this time. The cost of providing the s ervice was modest at approximately $180.00 per known successful quitte r. Results from the survey showed that 12.4% of hospital employees wer e regular smokers. Smoking prevalence was not equally distributed with female employees being twice as likely to smoke as their male counter parts and employees in the catering department having the highest smok ing prevalence (23.8%). Conclusions: Although the prevalence of cigare tte smoking by employees of this teaching hospital is lower than for t he general community, health sector employers can reduce smoking preva lence further by providing assistance to their employees to quit smoki ng. The Stop Smoking Programme we describe is effective and could be r eplicated by other hospitals and similar organisations.