Smoking is known to affect the body adversely and to contribute significantly to the development of many diseases. It is necessary to carry out education programs, to develop healthy attitudes and to motivate smokers to start the fight against addiction. The aim is to show the patients’ point of view on the effects of tobacco smoking on health. It was also an attempt to assess patients’ knowledge about the effects of smoking and the incidence of civilization diseases. The authors analyze the health behaviours and habits of nicotine-dependent patients from data from patients hospitalized in the rehabilitation and internal diseases wards.

Material and Methods:
A questionnaire survey was conducted in patients hospitalized at the University Hospital in Olsztyn and Healthcare Complex in Nidzica. The study included 50 smokers aged 21 to 80 years. The data was used to develop statistical methods: analysis of rho-Spearman correlation to examine relationships between variables, non-parametric test of Mann-Whitney U to detectsignificant differences between the compared groups and one-way analysis of variance to test differences between groups.

Results:
Prevalence of symptoms of the disease in patients is associated with an increased awareness of the dangers of smoking tobacco. Knowledge of these risks among the respondents is independent of age and education. Educational activities conducted by therapists are indeed important for the patients’ health-related behaviors.

Conclusions:
Awareness of the dangers of cigarette smoking is fixed and is not determined by the age of the smoker, education or the fact of suffering from a particular disease. Therapists who have frequent contact with the patients are able to affect their health behaviors. In connection with the manifestation of tolerance to the phenomenon of heavy smokers’ nicotine addiction, people from a particular physical neighborhood are more likely to adopt the habit. There are still no effective methods of motivating people to give up the habit.