Anti-smoking education in Oxfordshire general practices.

A postal questionnaire survey of 360 Oxfordshire general practitioners and health visitors on the subject of anti-smoking education was conducted in May-June 1980. Two mailings produced a response rate of 87 per cent. Involvement in anti-smoking education was felt to be more relevant for the doctors than for the health visitors. Health visitors thought that health education officers had a major role to play; they were also more likely than doctors to use literature as an aid in counselling smokers. In general, the mass media were not thought to be effective in helping individual smokers to give up the habit. Both doctors and health visitors were in favour of their professional organizations exerting pressure on Parliament, but only one respondent had ever written to an MP about smoking.