Attitudes of Medical Students Towards Smoking as a Factor in the Effective Management of Health of the Population - Global Health Professions Student Survey, Poland
Attitudes of Medical Students Towards Smoking as a Factor in the Effective Management of Health of the Population - Global Health Professions Student Survey, Poland

Summary/Abstract: Introduction and objective: Healthcare professionals (HP) play a key role in the antitobacco counseling. The objective of the study was to investigate the prevalence and attitudes towards tobacco cessation training among medical students, and to evaluate their impact on the smoking status of the students. Material and methods: The Global Health Professions Student Survey was conducted among 389 dental and 1164 medical students in Poland in 2010. Results: 33% of the dental and 26% of the medical students declared current tobacco smoking. More than 73% of them were in favour of banning smoking in public places and more than 85% believed that HP had a role in providing anti-smoking advice to their patients. In addition, about 75% of the students thought that the patients have more chances to quit smoking if advised to do so by a HP. Only 23% of the dental students and 27% of the medical students declared that they had received specific training on smoking cessation techniques during their studies. The students who were in favour of a smoking ban in public places and those who believed that HP had a role in providing advice to patients appeared to have a lower probability of being smokers (OR=0,5 and OR=0,4; p<0.05). The risk of being a smoker was higher among the students who declared that they had received formal training in smoking cessation approaches to use with patients during their medical school training (OR=2.2 among dental and OR=1.6 among medical students, p<0,05). Conclusions: There is a need to adopt a standard undergraduate curriculum containing comprehensive tobacco control and cessation training to improve HP effectiveness as role models.

• Details
• Contents