Dental Students' Awareness, Preparedness and Barriers towards Managing Tobacco-Using Patients-A Cross-Sectional Study.
Aims: To evaluate Hong Kong dental students' perceived awareness, preparedness and barriers towards managing tobacco-using patients. Methods: A validated questionnaire was administered to dental students who were in their clinical years (the third, fourth, fifth and sixth year of study) in 2017 at the University of Hong Kong. The questionnaire consisted of three sections: (1) awareness towards practicing tobacco cessation counselling (TCC), (2) preparedness in terms of confidence, knowledge and clinical practices when managing tobacco-using patients, and (3) perceived barriers to counselling. Results: All 206 invited students had participated this study. Most (93%) agreed that dentists should deliver TCC. However, only around a quarter (26%) of students were well-prepared to help patients in tobacco cessation. While 60% of students agreed nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) was helpful for patients to quit tobacco use, only 28% understood its mechanism of action, and merely 16% were knowledgeable enough to introduce NRT to their patients. Two-thirds (62%) of students felt they did not have sufficient skills at this stage of their training. Conclusions: Most Hong Kong dental students had good awareness that dental professionals had an important role to promote tobacco cessation in their patient pools. However, not many of them were well-prepared to manage tobacco-using patients. Common barriers were found to be patients' apathy and students' inadequate familiarity with NRT.
['Liu|Dave Ching Yeung|DCY|', 'Ho|Tracy Chui Yi|TCY|', 'Duangthip|Duangporn|D|', 'Gao|Sherry Shiqian|SS|0000-0002-8340-5737', 'Lo|Edward Chin Man|ECM|', 'Chu|Chun Hung|CH|0000-0002-8167-0430']
D001364:Awareness D003376:Counseling D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies D005260:Female D006723:Hong Kong D006801:Humans D008297:Male D016540:Smoking Cessation D013335:Students, Dental D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires D020340:Tobacco Use Cessation
tobacco cessation counselling nicotine replacement therapy dental education public health smoking