[Smoking habit among workers of the public health system in Tenerife].

OBJECTIVE

To find the prevalence of tobacco use among workers in the Public Health system and to assess their own attitudes to the possibility of giving up smoking.

DESIGN

A descriptive study of a crossover type was carried out using a self-filled closed-answer questionnaire.

SETTING

The Public Health system on the island of Tenerife.

PARTICIPANTS

After stratified random sampling, a sample of 1,282 workers was obtained, of whom 770 (60%) answered the questionnaire. Later a reply was obtained from 10% of those who did not at first reply, without any differences from the other participants being apparent.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Overall prevalence is 43% of smokers, 13% ex-smokers and 44% non-smokers. 20% of the smokers have an important physical dependency and only 30.76% are highly motivated to stop smoking. 56% of smokers feel home pressure to stop smoking, while only 29.5% of smokers feel pressured at work. We elaborated a scale, which was useful in measuring peoples' motivation to abandon the habit.

CONCLUSIONS

Almost half these workers are smokers at present. Despite belonging to the Health system, they are no more motivated than the general population they look after.