Nurses Perspectives of Smoking Initiation, Addiction, and Cessation - Essay Example

The steps to inhibit the practice of smoking was taken through the medium of an in-depth understanding of the issues as related to the attitudes of the nurses toward smoking initiation, addiction and cessation. In addition, attempts were made to explore the preference of nurses for smoking cessation interventions. For the purpose of the study, a community-based intervention was conducted in an 8-week support group. The participants were required to initially complete a questionnaire, which held its base on previously validated instruments, which was used to assess demographics, smoking history and knowledge about cessation and advocacy.

The personal characteristics of the participants were required to be included in the instrument. The questions presented were related with the age, race or ethnicity, gender, marital status and geographical location, smoking status. , education, years in nursing, certification, current position, involvement in patient care, and place of employment, details on smoking and cessation history. The survey was not inclusive of the names of the participants. The data obtained was analyzed line by line and within the framework of pre-established content area.

The results revealed presence of four themes, which were initiation of smoking and addiction, myths and misconceptions about quitting, overcoming addictions, and strategies for improving on the platform of smoking cessation. The efforts of the addiction and cessation of smoking as mentioned by the nurses was similar to those, which were, presented by the general population. However, the smoking practice in nurses was found to associate with a feeling of guilt. Another important experience, which was mentioned by the smoking nurses, was their feeling of lack of understanding projected by fellow nurses and mangers regarding their need of quitting the smoking practice.

Those nurses who had successfully quit the practice of smoking were motivated by health concerns, pregnancy and their children. The nurses were of the opinion that several interventions can act as supportive in their attempts of smoking. Some of these interventions include the worksite services and Internet support group. The paper concluded that the feelings expressed by the nurses regarding the cessation of smoking interventions was same as that presented by the general population. The nurses realized two major concerns and these included confidentiality about their practice of smoking and counseling on the regard of guilty feeling for being a smoker.

The study adhered with the ethical principles and no revelation of the names of the participant nurses was made in the paper or otherwise. The method of data collection employed questionnaire, which held the advantage of being less expensive and with the type of questions selected, proved to be expressive. Other important benefits of questionnaire as a method of administration is that it is less time consuming and therefore nurses, as participants were not required to depart with their essential responsibilities in order to fill in the questionnaire.

The questionnaire also holds the advantage of posing less pressure on the subjects for immediate response thinking and there is no need to have the technical skill as required in the case of interview