The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: This paper describes the current situation and tendency of Tunisian health professional knowledge attitude and practice in tobacco

Methods: Data were collected from different surveys conducted since 1981 on Tunisian health professionals assessing their knowledge attitude and practice in tobacco.

Results: According studies made on medical and paramedical studies since 1981, smoking prevalence among doctors, in spite of the tendency of decline, there still high in particular among men (about 50% of men doctors in 1981 and 1992 versus 38% in 2005) whereas tobacco us is an increasing among blue workers and nurses between 1992 and 2005 (46% in 1992 versus more than 60% in 2005) and is now more prevalent than among physicians. Among medical students, different surveys conducted since 1987 have shown that in spite of the tendency for decline, there still exists a high prevalence of tobacco consumption among them. This is particularly so for male students among whom the prevalence at the first year (at entry) has declined from 30% to 19% between 1987 and 2004. However, the decline among the fifth year students (final year) is from 48% to 40%. These last figures confirm that the smoking habit escalates among students during the course of their studies (2 fold increase among males and 1-5 times among males between entry and exit from the training institute). conclusion: Comprehensive Intervention program to reduce smoking among all Health Professional staff and to improve counseling practices is needed.