Preparedness for the Smoking Cessation Role among Health Sciences Students in Kuwait

Abstract

Objective: Our aim was to assess students’ preparedness for the smoking cessation role after a teaching module on tobacco cessation and to assess the relationship between smoking status and preparedness. Methods: Pharmacy students attended a 4-hour module on the role of health professionals in smoking cessation based on the Rx for Change training program. Two years after the first introduction of the module, a questionnaire on preparedness and smoking status was filled in by 64 pharmacy students who had attended the module and 243 students from other health sciences that had not been exposed to the module. Results: Preparedness scores for the smoking cessation role for pharmacy students were significantly higher (mean = 19.5, n = 63) for the nonsmoking pharmacy students compared to other nonsmoking students in medicine (mean = 16.2, n = 149), dentistry (mean = 16.1, n = 40) and physical therapy (mean = 14.9, n = 16) (p = 0.009). The smoking prevalence was 3% among all females and 31% among all males. Smoking students were significantly less likely (p = 0.031) to agree that it is their professional responsibility to help patients quit smoking. Conclusion: Significant and long-lasting differences in students’ perception of preparedness for the smoking cessation role based on exposure to a short teaching module were demonstrated. Furthermore, our results support previous findings that smoking compromises attitude towards helping smokers to quit.

Tobacco cessation: attitude and practice of dentists in Northern United Arab Emirates

“…Good practice was observed more among nonusers of tobacco as compared to current tobacco users but the difference was not significant. This is in accordance with other studies (24,33,34). By comparison, a study in Ontario showed that former smokers and never smokers were significantly more likely to have good practice than current smokers have (31).…”

“…Dentists who have never consumed tobacco had a significantly higher good attitude score than those that had ever been tobacco users. This finding is consistent with studies in Kuwait, Kenya and Finland that reported a negative attitude towards patient counselling about smoking among healthcare professionals who smoke compared to those who are nonsmokers (24)(25)(26). This provides insight into the fact that dentists hold strong beliefs that they serve as a role model to their patients (11,12).…”

Prevalence of Water Pipe Use and Its Correlates in Iranian Women of Reproductive Age in Tehran: A Population-Based Study

“…Considering the fact that people find many friends at their university, it may follow that students smoke a water pipe as a way of spending their leisure time, and this may account for the higher prevalence of water pipe smoking among people with a university education. Educational interventions may be effective for helping smokers to quit [29]. …”

Elucidating the Molecular Basis of Multiple Sclerosis and Understanding the Disease Pathophysiology

“…The latter is an oxidative stressinduced transcription factor that regulates the expression of a number of antioxidant genes [18]. Not surprisingly, smoking has for a long time raised concern in the AGCs [19][20][21].…”