Smoking Knowledge, Attitudes, Behavior, and Associated Factors Among Chinese Male Surgeons

Abstract

Background The purpose of this study was to understand and assess the smoking knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and associated factors among Chinese male surgeons. Methods A total of 823 Chinese male surgeons from six cities in China participated in a survey of smoking knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in 2004. This study presents descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses of factors associated with the respondents' smoking behavior and smoking cessation activity. Results The current smoking prevalence for Chinese male surgeons was 45.2, and 42.5% of respondents reported having smoked in front of their patients. Few of the respondents always asked patients about their smoking status (25%) or advised smokers to quit smoking (27.2%). Logistic regression models found that current smoking status was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with the surgeons' knowledge of the harms of active and passive smoking and their attitudes toward smoke-free hospitals and health role modeling by physicians. Smoking in front of patients was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with the respondents' knowledge of active smoking harms, attitudes toward smoke-free hospitals, and cigarette consumption. The surgeons' smoking cessation activity was significantly associated (P \ 0.05) with their knowledge about the harms of active smoking, their rates of advising patients to quit smoking, and their knowledge of the harms of passive smoking. Conclusions Male surgeons have the highest smoking prevalence among Chinese physicians. They should actively participate in tobacco control training and education to improve their knowledge and attitudes toward smoking, which will improve their own smoking behavior and smoking cessation practices. Only by engaging all parts of the health care system, including surgeons, can China make headway against its tobacco epidemic.

Knowledge, attitude and practice of family physicians regarding smoking cessation counseling in family practice centers, suez canal university, Egypt

“…[15] These results were better than that study by Yao et al .,[16] which found that only 25% of the respondents always asked patients about their smoking status whereas only 27.2% advised smokers to quit smoking. [16] But worse than other study conducted by McIlvain et al .,[14] in University of Nebraska; concerning physician attitudes and the use of office-based activities for tobacco control, found that the five skills most often used were recommending pharmaceutical aids (96%), giving advice to quit (93%), discussing barriers to and/or resources for smoking cessation (74%), informal contracting for specific behavior change (53%), and scheduling follow-up (43%). However, according to the US Public Health Service clinical practice guideline of using the 5 As, “all patients need to be at least asked about their smoking status and advised to quit”.…”

A review of tobacco smoking and smoking cessation practices among physicians in China: 1987–2010

“…Men comprised ≥50% of the sample in most of the studies. Three studies focused only on male physicians 18 35 36…”

“…For example, the lowest rate (14%) reported by Zhang et al 33 had a sample size of 141, while Ye et al 13 reported the highest smoking rate (64%) in their study with 503 subjects. Similarly, Yao et al 18 only studied male physicians. Overall, the prevalence of current smoking among Chinese physicians is high, especially among male physicians.…”

Tobacco smoking among doctors in mainland China: a study from Shandong province and review of the literature

“…This may suggest a lower awareness of tobacco control measures, generally, given that a recent study from Beijing [23] reported low levels of knowledge among doctors regarding the effects of smoking on Tuberculosis (TB), while many did not view smoking cessation as an integral part of TB treatment for their patients. Similarly, smoking among Chinese doctors is not necessarily a secretive behaviour, with one study reporting that almost 90% of health care providers who smoked did so in the wards, [13] while another study reported that 43% of Chinese surgeons had smoked in front of their patients [14]. …”