Objective: to determine whether the age and medical condition of a patient influences hospital-based doctors' decision making when advising patients to stop smoking cigarettes.

Objective: to determine whether the age and medical condition of a patient influences hospital-based doctors' decision making when advising patients to stop smoking cigarettes. Methods: we readyed 142 doctors from four grades (consultant, registrar, senior house officer and house officer) and four specialities (medicine, surgery psychiatry and anaesthetics), based in a Dublin teaching hospital, with 20 clinical vignettes. Each vignette described a patient from united of five age groups with united of four levels of health. The vignettes were randomly mixed. We asked doctors to say whether they would advise the patient in each case to quit smoking. Results: hospital-based doctors are significantly les likely to advise patients aged throughout 65 years than younger patients of the hazards of cigarette smoking, irrespective of the person's physical or mental health (P < 0001) Conclusion: the advice given to patients about their cigarette smoking habits by means of hospital doctors is strongly influenced not solitary by the patient's health, unless also by the patient's chronological age.

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