Situational smoking among nurses of complementary study

Abstract

The habit of smoking cigarettes in polish society is so high, that it is believed that because of it, middle age population of poles loosing around 21 years of the average life expectation (10).The research carried on by many organisations shows that smoking cigarettes on regular basics cause damages to human body. To make the matters worse it has been proved that smoking is one of the main conditions, which seriously harms heart; also cause lung, liver, throat, abdomen, and intestines cancer. The bad influences of smoking cigarettes and the spread of smoking habit through nowadays society require preventive activity. But to make antismoking behaviour work one should diagnose this problem and especially estimate how this habit develops through different group of people. It is really hard to understand those smoker who by their carrier choices or occupation should not smoke i.e. teachers, tutors, doctors, nurses, etc., because the representatives of those social groups had have learned about consequences of smoking. Specially midwifes and nurses should use their knowledge, skills and authority to provide lecture about regular preventive medicine and treatment for those addicted to cigarettes. That is why non-smoking nurses with their knowledge of consequences of smoking are so valuable. The author of that research attempted to estimate the development of smoking habit among the nurses as well as situational smoking through them. To achieve the aim the author used his own questionnaire and Firth Questionnaire of Situational Smoking. 226 students of Nurse and Obstetrics Institute of University of Rzeszow took part in this research. Among them were 77 smokers who also answer the Firth Questionnaire of Situational Smoking. The results show that 25% of the nurses have been smoking cigarettes. Most of them smoke between 1–10 cigarettes per day. And almost 50% of them were smoking longer than 5 years. Each second of the smoking student could not estimate if it is possible for him/her to quit smoking. But they were considering quitting smoking while pregnant, sick or broken and financial situation. The group with high and strong situational smoking wills was bigger than the group with medium and low situational smoking will. For the first time in Poland research carried on among the nurses showed that 50% of them believed that smoking will not harm their health in the future.