Background: Nurses have a key role to play in the provision of advice to quit and smoking cessation treatment to smokers. However attitudes and knowledge towards smoking and smoking cessation have an important effect on assessing smoking status, giving brief advice, and the provision or, or referral for smoking cessation treatment. We designed a survey to assess knowledge of the health risks of smoking and benefits of smoking cessation, attitudes towards smoking, and the provision of smoking cessation advice and treatment in sample of nurses working in New Zealand.

Method: 1000 nurses (500 working in primary care and 500 working in secondary care) registered with the New Zealand Nursing Council were selected at random and invited to complete an anonymous paper questionnaire that incorporated items to assess the following: demographics, smoking history, knowledge of health risks of smoking and benefits of quitting, knowledge of evidence based smoking cessation interventions, and attitudes to smoking and smoking cessation.

Results: Results from this survey will be presented. Conclusions:/

Implications: Smoking cessation guidelines suggest that nurses have an important part in helping their patient who smoke to stop. The results from this research will reveal if the knowledge and attitudes of New Zealand nurses of smoking and smoking cessation have an impact on practice.