Smoking in nurses.

An anonymous questionnaire requesting information on smoking habits was administered to 220 randomly chosen trainee and registered nurses (159 females and 61 males). There was no significant difference between the proportion of male nurses (55-7%) and the proportion of males (45-0%) in the Australian sample who smoked. However, the 52-2% of female nurses smoking was significantly greater than the 29-0% reported for the Australian female population. There was some indication that the increased smoking in female nurses reflected a response to stress. Further analysis showed that nursing personnel were giving up smoking at the same rate as the general Australian sample.