Knowledge, Beliefs, Attitude and Practices of Nurses Caring for Tobacco- Smoking Patients with Psychiatric Problems

Tobacco smoking is a common problem among residential psychiatric settings. People
with mental disorders have been found to have higher rates of nicotine dependence than the
general population. They also have higher mortality rate from tobacco related conditions.
Nurses working in Psychiatric and mental health settings are ideally placed to deliver
smoking cessation intervention to the client. Objective: Assess knowledge, beliefs, attitude
and practices of nurses caring for tobacco-smoking patients with psychiatric problem.
Settings: The study was conducted at two settings; Neuropsychiatry Department at Tanta
University Hospital and Psychiatric Department at Psychiatric, Neurology and Neurosurgery
Center at Tanta University. Tool: Psychiatric Nurses’ Knowledge, Belief, Attitude and
Practices towards Patients’ Tobacco-Smoking Questionnaire was used to collect the data for
the present study. Results: The present study revealed that, more than half of studied nurses
have high level of knowledge and the majority of nurses have positive attitude regarding
smoking cessation, and about half of nurses have low level of practice regarding smoking
cessation. Also, the majority of nurses face many challenges and barriers in helping patients
to stop smoking. There were positive statistically significant relationships between the nurses'
knowledge, attitude and belief and their level of practice towards psychiatric patient smoking
cessation. Also this study stated a positively significant relation between nurses' level of
knowledge, attitude and practices with their socio demographic characteristics; age and
years of experiences, attending training program, educational level and intention to help
psychiatric patient in smoking cessation. Conclusion: Nurses in general have knowledge,
proper beliefs and a positive attitude toward smoking cessation yet, the level of practice of
smoking cessation was low. Recommendations: The main recommendations pertaining to this
study is to address training needs for nurses on smoking cessation intervention methods and
techniques in addition to providing mental health nurses with the skills to deliver effective
Smoking cessation intervention.