Objective: To find the prevalence of tobacco use among workers in the Public Health system and to assess their own attitudes to the possibility of giving up smoking.
Design: A descriptive study of a crossover type was carried out using a self-filled closed-answer questionnaire.
Setting: The Public Health system on the island of Tenerife.
Participants: After stratified random sampling, a sample of 1,282 workers was obtained, of whom 770 (60%) answered the questionnaire. Later a reply was obtained from 10% of those who did not at first reply, without any differences from the other participants being apparent.
Measurements and main results: Overall prevalence is 43% of smokers, 13% ex-smokers and 44% non-smokers. 20% of the smokers have an important physical dependency and only 30.76% are highly motivated to stop smoking. 56% of smokers feel home pressure to stop smoking, while only 29.5% of smokers feel pressured at work. We elaborated a scale, which was useful in measuring peoples' motivation to abandon the habit.
Conclusions: Almost half these workers are smokers at present. Despite belonging to the Health system, they are no more motivated than the general population they look after.