Abstract
Objective To assess the knowledge, practice, attitude, and preparedness of dental professionals in prescribing nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Methodology. A prevalidated voluntary web-based questionnaire was generated as a link through Google Drive and was sent to 117 dental professionals in North India using Whatsapp, Messenger, and Instagram social media platforms. A total of 94 responses were received and out of which 76 responses were analyzed (18 forms were excluded due to incomplete or duplicate responses). Frequency analysis was done using SPSS software version 21. Result The participation rate was found to be 80.3%. More than half of the study population were familiar with the term NRT (77.6%) and its uses (67.1%), but approximately less than half of the total study subjects knew the duration (32.9%), cost (27.6%), dosage (25%), and contraindications (36.8%) of the NRT. Approximately 56.6% of the study participants showed a positive attitude towards helping patients to quit smoking through tobacco cessation counseling. Nearly one-fourth of the study population, i.e., 27.6%, were confident in explaining the negative impacts of tobacco, while 22.4% knew about the tobacco cessation protocol. Among the participants, only 27.6% reported that they practice NRT and out of which approximately less than 20% of the study participants were prescribing correct dose of NRT. Conclusion Though study subjects had an ample knowledge regarding NRT use in tobacco cessation, it does not reflect their current attitude and preparedness. Thus, there is a need for continuing education to further train dental professionals for prescribing NRT.
Highlights
Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year
Important is to assist in the establishment of proposals to offer training to dental professionals that already work in private clinics/offices
Results of the present study showed that majority of the study participants belonged to 21-30 years old age group having
Summary
Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of these deaths are due to the direct use of tobacco, and approximately 1.2 million are due to passive smoking or third handsmoke [1]. More countries are making tobacco control a priority for saving lives by using the WHO MPOWER strategy, i.e., monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies, protecting people from tobacco smoke, offering help to quit tobacco use, warning about the danger of tobacco, enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship, and raising tobacco taxes [2]. The government of India launched the National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP) in the year 2007-08 to create awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco consumption, to reduce the production and supply of tobacco products, and to ensure effective implementation of the provisions under “The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply, and Distribution) Act, 2003” (COTPA) to help the people quit tobacco use.
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