A comparison of smoking habits, beliefs and attitudes among Tuscan student nurses in 1992 and 1999

Two-hundred-and-fifty students (aged 24 ± 4 years, mean ± SD, females were 75%) attending the first year of training in Florence Nursing School in 1991–1992 and 205 ones (aged 22 ± 4 years; females 83% of the total) in the first year course of Nursing Schools of the Universities of Siena and Florence in 1998–1999 answered the same anonymous, self-administered questionnaire about their smoking habits, beliefs and attitudes. The overall response rate was 92% in 1992 and 88% in 1999. In 1992 and 1999, respectively, ex-smokers were 13 and 11%, current smokers 51 and 43%. Ten percent of nurses who smoked in 1992 and 16% in 1999 were occasional smokers. The average daily number of cigarettes among respondents who smoked was lower in 1999. For both the surveys the beliefs about tobacco smoking remained generic and more often drawn from unspecific sources of information. Compared to 1992, in 1999 student nurses improved some attitudes towards smoking, such as the increased awareness that smoking cessation methods may be useful to quit and that hospital should be smoke-free. These positive attitudes did not change their smoking habits and the opinion on their ongoing smoking habits. Student nurses also did not obtain a consistently increased awareness about their role for advising subjects who smoked against smoking. We conclude that from 1992 to 1999 in Tuscany the smoking habits of first year student nurses changed little and remained high. There is a need for targeting antismoking education and for including specific training about tobacco smoking in the curricula of Italian nurse schools.