[Knowledge and behaviour concerning smoking tobacco among police officers].

Job of a policeman belongs to the group of jobs with highest factor of psychological load. Working under high stress results in police officers reaching out for a cigarette, regardless of their knowledge about how harmful it is, believing--quite wrongly--that this will lower the stress level. The aim of the research was to determine the behaviour of policemen concerning smoking tobacco and evaluating their knowledge about its influence on health. In Poland in March and April 2008, there was research carried out using an auditory survey among 315 police officers of City Police Station in a city of almost 80 thousand people. The survey was completed by 102 people, which makes up for 32.4% of the total number of employed. Among the respondents there were 86 men (84.3%) and 16 women (15.7%). Age average of the surveyed was 37. The highest number, 76 people (74.5%) were graduates of high schools. Majority, 50 people (56.9%) had been in police service for over 15 years. Answering the questions included in the survey, concerning smoking cigarettes during two months prior to the questionnaire, 40 people (39.2%) admitted to smoking. This number included 28 people (27.4% of the total number of the studied cases) who claimed they had smoked every day, seven people (6.9%) responded they smoked almost every day and 5 people (4.9%) smoked from time to time. In the group of 30 smoked men, majority, that is 16 people answered they had smoked everywhere they wished to, disregarding signs prohibiting smoking. Evaluating the influence of smoking on health, 88 people (86.3%) claimed it was very harmful. Vast majority of the studied cases, that is 78 people (76.5%) thought their knowledge about negative effects of smoking was high enough, but almost half of the studied cases, that is 48 people (47.1%) claimed they had never heard about actions or antinicotine campaigns in Poland. Popularizing smoking among police officers who agreed to take part grounds to claim that police officers who did not agree to take part in completing the survey also smoked cigarettes. Majority of police officers who smoked, inhaled tobacco smoke disregarding their knowledge about the damaging effect of smoking.