Psychologists and tobacco: attitudes to cessation counseling and patterns of use.
BACKGROUND
Psychologists can play an important role in helping their clients stop using tobacco. The extent to which they do so, or quit themselves, has not been reported previously. The utility of snus in reducing smoking prevalence is also questioned and merits study.


METHODS
A 36-item self-completion questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 1000 Swedish psychologists.


RESULTS
The response rate was 85%. Very few psychologists (1%) 'often' helped clients to stop using tobacco. While a majority (72%) believed that quitting tobacco use would improve their client's quality of life, most (75%) thought that it was not their responsibility to help clients stop and 74% felt they lacked the necessary skills. About 8% of psychologists smoked cigarettes daily. Use of snus as an aid to cigarette cessation was common in men, but not women, although overall, the percentage of smokers who had quit smoking (72%) did not differ by gender.


CONCLUSIONS
Most Swedish psychologists have stopped smoking, but very few help their clients to quit. Targeted campaigns aimed at encouraging and supporting psychologists to treat nicotine dependence are needed. This could increase cessation rates in the population. Snus helped reduce smoking prevalence among men and is a potentially useful harm reduction tool.
Hjalmarson
Agneta
A
Division of Cardiology, The Cardiovascular Institute, Smoking Cessation Clinic, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, SE 413 45 Gothenburg, Sweden. agneta.hjalmarson@vgregion.se
Saloojee
Yussuf
Y
D000367:Age Factors; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003376:Counseling / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D010819:Physician's Role; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011336:Probability; D011584:Psychology / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013019:South Africa; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires