[The smoking habits of health care workers and their approach to smoking in Gaziosmanpaşa and Eyüp counties of Istanbul].

We aimed to determine the smoking habits of the health care workers and their approach to smoking. A questionnaire was applied to the health care workers about smoking in the counties of Istanbul (in Eyüp and Gaziosmanpaşa). Of 629 participants, the ratio of smoking in all health care workers was 49.3%. There was no difference in the frequency of smoking in the health care workers about sex, marital status, private or state hospital, the group of job, general practitioner or specialist doctor (p> 0.05). However, the rate of smoking was lower in married doctors than unmarried ones, and it was higher in male technician than females (p< 0.05). Partners of smoker doctors and nurses had higher smoking rate (p< 0.01). There was no difference between smoker and nonsmoker doctors in asking about smoking to their patients. The rate of "Yes" answer to the question of "Do you explain the necessity and recommend to give up smoking to more than 70% of your smoking patients?" asked to the doctors was different between smoker and nonsmoker doctors (58.8% and 72.5% respectively, p< 0.05). These results show that more efforts are needed and should be spent on the education about the harmful effects of tobacco products and needs of fighting against smoking in medical faculties, in health occupation schools, in all health care services.