Thai Dental Professional Survey on Tobacco Use and Control
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Date
2010-09-01
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Publisher
Journal of the Dental Association of Thailand
Abstract
One of the strategies to reduce the number of smoking-related deaths was to encourage the involvement of health professionals in tobacco control and cessation counselling. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed the Global Health Professionals Survey (GHPS) to collect data on tobacco use and tobacco control among health-profession students. The aim of this study was to survey the prevalence of cigarette smoking and other tobacco products use, knowledge and attitudes about tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke, desire for smoking cessation, training received regarding patient counselling on smoking-cessation technique, and dentists’ role in reducing tobacco use in dental offices. The self-administered questionnaires were sent to 8,266 dentists and 1,522 dental assistants by mail. Dentistresponse rate was 20.7%, and dental assistant response rate was 40.5%. The findings indicated that current cigarette smoking among these dental professionals was 2.4%(dentist rate and dental assistant rate was 2.0% and 3.4%, respectively). The majority,(93.0-95.0%) of the surveyed dentists and dental assistants reported that they should have a role in counselling patients to quit smoking. However, the percentage of dental professionals who actually received formal training in tobacco cessation counselling were 8.6% among dentists and 11.8% among dental assistants. Only 5.5% of dentists had provided smoking cessation section in their dental offices. In summary, Thai dentists and dental assistants had very law rate of tobacco comsumption. They required more trainings on smoking cessation services.
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Citation
Journal of the Dental Association of Thailand; Vol. 59 No.4 October-December 2009; 256-271