Evidence from a Smoking Management Service in a University Teaching Hospital in Dublin, Ireland monitored by repeat surveys, 1997–2022

• Published in: Preventive medicine reports 2023-12, Vol.36, p.102415, Article 102415
• Main Authors: Mattson, Ana, Doherty, Kirsten, Lyons, Ailsa, Douglass, Alexander, Kerley, Mary, Stynes, Sinead, Fitzpatrick, Patricia, Kelleher, Cecily
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attitudes; Campus smoking ban; COVID-19 trends; Regular; Smoking cessation; Smoking prevalence
• ISSN: 2211-3355; 2211-3355
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2023.102415

•European Network of Smoke-free Hospitals (ENSH) gold level award-winning hospital.•One of few studies reporting smoking prevalence and attitudes of campus-wide smoking ban in a hospital setting over a twenty-five year time period.•Documented significant downwards trends in active smoking in staff, outpatients, and visitors since campus-wide smoking ban instituted.•Novel virtual smoking cessation intervention due to COVID-19 successfully implemented. St Vincent’s University Hospital (SVUH) has a comprehensive smoking management programme and since 1997 has conducted periodic surveys of inpatients, outpatients, staff and visitors to establish prevalence of smoking and associated attitudes towards the hospital’s smoke-free campus policy pioneered in 2009. We report trends and describe also the online community stop smoking course (SSC) developed more recently in response to COVID-19. A questionnaire examining attitudes and smoking status was administered by census surveys of inpatients, quota or random sub-sample surveys of staff, and quota surveys with outpatients and visitors in the time period of 1997–2018. Chi square test for trend was used. Smoking rates declined in all groups but significantly so in outpatients (19.5% vs. 10%; p