Short report

Smoke-free hospitals in Greece: Personnel perceptions, compliance and smoking habit

Constantine I Vardavas¹ , Izolde Bouloukaki² , Manolis K Linardakis¹ , Penelope Tzilepi³ , Nikos Tzanakis^1,2 and Anthony G Kafatos¹

¹  Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, Greece

²  Department of Thoracic Medicine, University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece

³  Department of Management, University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece

author email corresponding author email

Tobacco Induced Diseases 2009, 5:8doi:10.1186/1617-9625-5-8

Published:	31 March 2009

Abstract

Smoke-free environments in Greece are scarce. Despite existent legislation that forbids smoking in all health care service centers, smoking is still evident. Using a random sample of hospital personnel from a large university hospital in Greece, we evaluated their smoking habits, perceptions and compliance towards hospital smoking regulations. 57.8% of the nursing personnel and 34.5% of medical/research staff were found to be current smokers (p < 0.05). Although 66% of the staff does not oppose the complete hospital smoking ban, 95% responded that they would prefer it to be partial. The above findings warrant the necessity for nurturing efforts to reduce smoking and increase the health professionals' awareness of their position as a role model to both patients and the society.