The smoking behaviour of military nurses: the relationship to job stress, job satisfaction and social support

Three hundred and seven nurses at a large military medical centre were sent and completed an anonymous questionnaire which measured their smoking status along with job stress, job satisfaction and social support, as well as a variety of demographic factors. Three groups of nurses were defined on the basis of their response to the smoking status questions: those who have never smoked (54%), former smokers (23%) and current smokers (22%). The results revealed that the current smokers reported significantly (P less than 0.05) more job stress, job dissatisfaction and less social support than either former smokers or those who had never smoked. Further, the former smokers reported significantly less social support, defined from a variety of perspectives, than those who had never smoked. These were not as important in predicting amount smoked (number of cigarettes per day) among the current smoker group as they were in predicting differences between the different smoking status groups. The results suggest the need to incorporate the issues of social support and to a lesser extent job stress/satisfaction issues into smoking cessation programmes aimed at this population.