Nicotine and Nurses
Editor's
Note
Nicotine and Nurses
Respond to the Editor's Note
Do you smoke? Even if you don't, too many of our colleagues do. When it comes to the subject of nurses and smoking, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that a smaller percentage of nurses smoke than the general population, or women in general. And the percentage of nurses who smoke is on the decline. The bad news, though, is that almost one out of five nurses smoke.
As of 1994, 25.5 percent of all adults and 23.1 percent of women smoke. But according to the Nurses' Health Study at the Harvard School of Public Health, as of 1990, 19.4 percent of the nurses in the study smoked.
The study, the first of its kind, began in 1976, when 121,700 American female registered nurses ages 30 to 55 completed a mailed questionnaire on known or suspected risk factors for cancer and coronary heart disease. Every two years, participants are sent follow-up questionnaires to update information on potential risk factors and gather data on diagnoses of disease.
I remember my initial surprise as a new grad-20 years ago this month-when I saw nurses smoking during report, on breaks, and at parties. At that time, an astounding 33.2 percent of nurses smoked, according to the Nurses' Health Study. I remember asking a few of the nurses on my unit why they smoked and hearing what most people hear when they ask smokers that question: "I don't know; it's relaxing. And it keeps my weight down."
It's hard to understand how a profession that faces the devastating side effects of smoking every day can have such a relatively high percentage of smokers. How effective is a nurse in educating a patient about the need to quit the habit when he or she hasn't yet found a way to stop? As a profession, we've been adamant about many public health issues.
Now we should focus on smoking, one of the most damaging of all behaviors, and find ways to encourage our colleagues to break the habit.
Barbara Bronson Gray, MN, RN
Editor in ChiefPast Editor's Notes Too much money or too many misconceptions?
One thing technology rarely does is answer society's questions about health care
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