Study of smoking pattern in intern doctors and perception

Abstract

Introduction: Substance abuse is very common among medical intern students and smoking is found to be the single greatest preventable cause of premature death and disability. It may affect their leaning abilities and can also deteriorate the quality of health care offered to the patients. This study was conducted in order to assess the knowledge and attitude of interns towards smoking and to study their perception towards internship. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted at SHKM Govt. Medical College, Nuh, Haryana, India. Interns were provided with a pretested, anonymous, semi open-ended questionnaire. All passed out final year MBBS students were included in the study. Response rate of the study was 78.2% as 61 out of 78 passed out students returned duly filled questionnaire after one month of internship period. Results: Smoking emerged as a major factor of substance abuse among medical interns. Most of them started smoking under pressure of peer group and 44.26% were having one of their family members as a regular smoker. Most of the intern doctors wanted to prepare for PG entrance examinations (39.34%) and choice of PG branch was clinical (86.88%). Most of the interns wanted to serve in urban settings after doing PG (78.69%). Conclusion: Smoking was found to be very common among intern doctors precipitated by stress or due to pressure of the peer group. The perception of the intern doctors was to prepare for PG entrance examinations during internship. Keywords: Perception, Smoking, Intern Doctors, Internship.