Abstract
BackgroundDental professionals are uniquely positioned to discourage smoking among their patients. However, little is known about the role of cultural background and attitudes towards smoking in the education of these professionals. Our study aimed to compare native Lithuanian and international dental students’ smoking habits, knowledge about the harmfulness of smoking and attitudes towards smoking cessation.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional survey of smoking and its cessation among dental students at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (Kaunas, Lithuania) in 2012. All Lithuanian and international dental students in each year of dental school were invited to participate in the survey during a compulsory practical class or seminar. Altogether 606 students participated in the survey with a response rate of 84.2%. Explanatory factorial analysis (EFA), multivariate Discriminant Analysis (DA) and Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) served for the statistical analyses.ResultsThe percentages of occasional/current regular smokers were 41.1% and 55.7% (p = 0.068) among Lithuanian and international male students, and 22.7% and 22.9% (p = 0.776) among Lithuanian and international female students, respectively. The international dental students had a deeper knowledge of the harmfulness/addictiveness of smoking and held more positive attitudes towards smoking cessation among their patients than did the native Lithuanian dental students.ConclusionsThe findings of the study underscored the need to properly incorporate tobacco cessation training into the curriculum of dental education. However, consideration of the cultural background of dental students in building up their capacity and competence for intervening against smoking is essential.
Highlights
Dental professionals are uniquely positioned to discourage smoking among their patients
Dental education can play an important role in building up the courage and competence of dental professionals to intervene against smoking [7], but this would require dental professionals to adopt a positive attitude towards smoking prevention and cessation, systematic education about the health risks linked to it, the dangers of addiction to it, and the provision of treatments for it [8]
Current smoking was more prevalent among international students than among Lithuanian students, the difference in smoking rates was non-significant
Summary
Dental professionals are uniquely positioned to discourage smoking among their patients. Dental professionals as members of a multi-professional health care team are uniquely positioned to contribute efforts both to prevent smoking and to promote its cessation [1]. Numerous studies have shown that even brief and simple advice from health professionals can substantially lower smoking rates and that prevention and cessation counselling in the dental setting is both relevant and effective [1,2,3]. Dental education can play an important role in building up the courage and competence of dental professionals to intervene against smoking [7], but this would require dental professionals to adopt a positive attitude towards smoking prevention and cessation, systematic education about the health risks linked to it, the dangers of addiction to it, and the provision of treatments for it [8].
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