Abstract
BACKGROUND Majority of smokers are aware of health consequences due to smoking but reported inability to quit smoking in multiple studies. Reasons attributed to continued smoking include multiple causes like addiction, habit and stress, as well as face-valid causes such as disease, personality problems, weakness of character, etc. Tobacco cessation services promoted by World Health Organization (WHO) are typically to be initiated by the service provider and include brief opportunistic assessment for smoking cessation widely known as 5A’ and 5R’s for brief assessment. Health interventions are identified by WHO as an effective way to enhance the promotion of tobacco cessation as only three percent of smokers manage to quit without help of intervention. This study explored the awareness of smart phone apps for smoking cessation among private healthcare providers in Chennai. METHODS A qualitative, explorative study through one-on-one, personal interviews among 36 randomly approached and consenting healthcare providers primarily providing tobacco related health care services including dentists, psychiatrists, ear – nose - throat surgeons, general medicine, respiratory medicine, surgeons and obstetricians at six private teaching medical institutes was conducted from July 2020 to October 2020 in Chennai. RESULTS The results showed that majority of the healthcare providers lack awareness of smart phone-based apps for smoking cessation. However, a very small minority3 who were aware were limited by social determinants of health of the clients such as perceived poor digital literacy, unaffordability of internet packages to recommend them. CONCLUSIONS The healthcare providers from various fields lacked the awareness of smart phone apps aiding with smoking cessation with the exception of a minor few3 who acknowledged their existence but were engaged very minimally with these modalities. KEYWORDS Healthcare Providers’ Awareness, Smart Phone Based-Apps, Smoking Cessation Apps, Tobacco Clients, Personal Interviews
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