The Japanese Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (JAOMFS) declared the promotion of anti-smoking on October 23, 2003. We carried out two kinds of questionnaire surveys: one examined the attitudes of training hospitals towards smokers in August 2007, and the other assessed the smoking habits of JAOMFS members in October 2006.
Results: 1. In the first survey, 73.5%(180/245) of the training hospitals responded. 92.2%(166/180) of the hospitals had already set up full no-smoking areas only inside of the hospital buildings. General hospitals with Departments of Dentistry and Oral Surgery had the highest rate of prohibition (94.4%). Most of the training hospitals of JAOMFS had tried to prohibit smoking inside of the hospital buildings since 2003. 52.2%(94/180) of respondents designated full no-smoking areas in all medical sites and buildings. Hospitals with both medical and dental faculties with Departments of Dentistry and Oral Surgery had the highest prohibition rate (64.7%). Dental hospitals had the lowest prohibition rate (17.4%). The attitude toward smoking prohibition in medical sites and buildings had gradually intensified since 2003 at several training hospitals.
2. The second survey had a response rate of 4.9% of all members (8547). Smokers accounted for 10.5%(44/419) of the respondents. The male-female ratio of all respondents was 9 to 1. The rate of smoking among males was 11.0%(41/374), and that among females was 7.5%(3/40). The highest rate of smoking was among members less than 6 years after joining the JAOMFS (22.2%) and among members in their thirties (18.1%). The smoking rate was highest among members who worked at dental hospitals (19.0%). The rate of awareness of our anti-smoking policy was 82.9% among the respondent members. 99.0% of the members were aware of the relation between smoking and diseases of the oral mucosa.
