Awareness of smoking among pharmacy staff in Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun, Ipoh / Luk. Manul Hakim Md. Zin

Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death. As we know, smoking can cause a lot of diseases such as heart disease, chronic bronchitis disease, stroke and so on. I therefore assessed the pharmacy staffs itself who face many patients with these types of disease almost every day whether they aware or not about this smoking related issue. 58 pharmacy staffs which include pharmacist, pharmacist assistant, trainees assistant pharmacist, and also attendants. We collected the data by using a survey questionnaire form. The respondents had been asked for their opinions about issues related to smoking. Most of the respondents said that the most cause of death before the age of 50 in Malaysia is road accident (48.3%). But, the gap between those who said road accident and smoking was only 4 people. Respondents’ level of education more and less affect the answer. Compare to males, females were not mind if smokers smoke near to them. For both gender, the reason why they did mind was mostly due to it is bad for their health. 56% of respondents said the main factor that leads someone to smoke was they were influenced by their friends and also by their family members. Most of respondents were strongly agreed on restriction of smoking in smoking working area. Most of them also said that smoking among professionals will promote unhealthy lifestyle without they realize it. Generally, most of the respondents were well aware about the smoking issues. They were aware of the effect of smoking on their health that can lead to death.