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Re: Address smoking in student nurses

Ohida et al. provide us with an useful overview of smoking amongst female nurses in Japan. They suggest that smoking cessation programmes should be incorporated into nursing education and in-hospital education. This is an important health education recommendation, especially since tobacco consumption is relatively high amongst student nurses. For example, we found that in Scotland nursing students were more likely to smoke than medical students and education students [1]. Furthermore, there appeared to be no significant difference in the frequency or the amount of tobacco consumed between Scottish nursing students in their first year compared with those in their last year [2]. One of the explanations for the latter phenomenon might be that student nurses have a social class background which experiences a generally higher smoking prevalence. Ohida et al mention, of course, the other factor suggested for the 'high' prevalence of smoking amongst nurses: stress at work