Effect of physicians’ smoking status on their knowledge, attitude, opinions and practices of smoking cessation in a University Hospital, in Egypt

Background: The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats. Smoking prevalence and smoking cessation intentions among physicians vary from a country/community to another. Recently, a global reduction in the rates of smoking among healthcare providers is observed.
Aim: This study aims to describe the effect of physicians’ smoking status on their knowledge, attitude, opinions, and practices of smoking cessation in patients in a Tertiary Healthcare University Hospital in Cairo, Egypt.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at four specialized hospitals in a Tertiary Healthcare University Hospital in Cairo. Anonymous questionnaires included sociodemographic, occupational data, history of smoking, smoking-related knowledge, attitude, and practices of smoking cessation counselling.
Results: The study included 521 physicians, 26.5% of physicians have never received training on smoking-cessation approaches. The prevalence of current smoking among the studied physicians was 21.5%. Only 45.5% of smoking physicians have never smoked in front of a patient and 27.7% have no compliance to the smoke-free policy in nonsmoking areas. Smoking physicians were significantly less likely than nonsmokers to identify the effect of passive smoking on the heart, lungs, and on neonates (67.9, 58.9, and 53.6% compared with 83.6, 77, 60, and 56.7%, respectively). A lower percentage of smoking physicians (34.8%) agreed that smoking physicians are less likely to convince patients to quit smoking compared with about 60% of nonsmoking physicians. The practices related to smoking cessation as reported by both smokers and nonsmokers were inadequate.
Conclusion: Smoking status significantly affects the knowledge, attitude, and some practices of physicians related to smoking cessation counselling. Training on smoking cessation should be enforced during undergraduate and postgraduate studies of physicians.