Physicians smoke as much as their patients in Turkey

Background: There are approximately 17 million smokers in Turkey. These smokers impacted the social and behavioural aspects of the community especially the younger age group which constitutes the majority of the Turkish population. Physicians’ attitudes towards smoking transcend into their patients. Methods: Attitudes and behaviours of physicians in Trakya University Hospital towards smoking were investigated using a questionnaire prepared with the help of WHO. Results: One hundred and thirty eight physicians out of 413 agreed to participate and respond with a response rate of 33.4%. Of those, 55 (39.9%) were academic staff and 83 (60.1%) were residents. Smoking rate was 45.5% with another 12.9% who have stopped smoking within the last five years. According to their Fagerstrom Tolerance Scale scores 14 (25.5%) were nicotine dependent. Almost 41% of them never thought or tried to quit smoking. Almost 66% of the physicians asked their patients about their smoking habits during their routine visits and 77.4% of them strongly recommended their patients to stop smoking in the event a disease was suspected to be related to smoking. Physicians’ recommendations were less strong if the disease in question was not related to tobacco use (36.9%). Discussion: These results concur with others in Turkey. Smoking rates of Turkish physicians were higher than their colleagues in many other countries. They don’t think of quitting and they don’t even have any desire to quit. They are also unwilling to entertain or undergo smoking cessation counseling. Turkish physicians need more education on smoking cessation and counseling.