Do patient age and medical condition influence medical advice to stop smoking?

Objective: to determine whether the age and medical condition of a patient influences hospital-based doctors' decision making when advising patients t o stop smoking cigarettes. Methods: we presented 142 doctors from four grades (consultant, registrar, senior house officer and house officer) and four specialities (medicine, su rgery, psychiatry and anaesthetics), based in a Dublin teaching hospital, w ith 20 clinical vignettes. Each vignette described a patient from one of fi ve age groups with one of four levels of health. The vignettes were randoml y mixed. We asked doctors to say whether they would advise the patient in e ach case to quit smoking. Results: hospital-based doctors are significantly less likely to advise pat ients aged over 65 years than younger patients of the hazards of cigarette smoking, irrespective of the person's physical or mental health (P < 0.001) . Conclusion: the advice given to patients about their cigarette smoking ha bits by hospital doctors is strongly influenced not only by the patient's h ealth, but also by the patient's chronological age.