[Does medical education change behavior, attitude and knowledge in relation to smoking? A survey of medical students in the 1st and next to last year of study].

Among the 831 students in the first and last-but-one year of medical studies, 21% were smokers, 4% occasional smokers, 63% non-smokers and 5% former smokers. There were no statistically significant difference in smoking habits between the first and fifth years of study. The different semesters did, however, reveal significant differences with respect to their evaluation of smoking as a health hazard, their knowledgability as to the causal effects of smoking in diverse diseases, the readiness of the doctors-to-be to counsel their patients to avoid smoking, self assessment of their knowledge about smoker counselling methods, their support for the ban on cigarette advertising, and further education in the field of smoker counselling. Significant difference were to be seen between smokers, former smokers and non-smokers with respect to their personal evaluation of their smoking habits over the next five years, the assessment of smoking as a hazard to health, and the subjective burdening of smoking, the question as to the example-setting and instructive role of the physician with respect to smoking, and the question of statutory measures affecting smoking.