Changing Smoking Behavior of Staff at Dr. Zainoel Abidin Provincial General Hospital, Banda Aceh

Smoking tobacco is a habit of individuals. Determinants of smoking behavior are multiple factors both within the individual and in the social environment around the individual. Staff smoking has been an undesirable phenomenon at Dr. Zainoel Abidin Provincial General Hospital in Banda Aceh. Health promotion efforts are a strategy that has resulted in behavioral changes with reductions in smoking by staff. This action research was designed to analyze changes in smoking behavior of hospital staff. The sample for this research was all 152 male staff who were smokers. The results of this research showed that Health Promotion Interventions (HPI) consisting of personal empowerment plus social support and advocacy to improve employee knowledge and attitudes influenced staff to stop or to significantly. HPI employed included counseling programs, distribution of antismoking leaflets, putting up antismoking posters, and installation of no smoking signs. These HPI proved effective to increase knowledge and create a positive attitude to nonsmoking that resulted in major reductions in smoking by staff when offsite and complete cessation of smoking whilst in the hospital. Continuous evaluation, monitoring, and strengthening of policies banning smoking should be maintained in all hospitals. 1. Introduction 1.1. Background Human behavior is a reflection of various psychological tendencies that are based on stimuli from outside, both intentional and unintentional, having either positive responses or negative responses. Behavior has three domains that can be measured, namely, knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Knowledge and attitudes are passive responses, whereas practice is an active response. Health behavior is a form of stimulus that is related to health and sickness. One form of unhealthy behavior is smoking tobacco or cigarettes. As described in Act number 36 of 2009, health is a state of health, including physical, mental, spiritual, and social health which allows everyone to live productively in a social and economic way. Smoking is an individual and/or group behavior which is injurious to the health of the smoker and also to the health of others through secondary smoking so that the individual who smokes can be categorized as unhealthy. Cigarette smoking is a form of behavior that is a manifestation of specific needs that can be satisfied when a person smokes. Smoking behavior is the action of a person who sucks tobacco smoke into their own mouth and lungs. Smoking behaviour can be observed or measured by looking at the volume or frequency of smoking of that