Tobacco Use, Exposure to Secondhand Smoke, and Cessation Counseling Among Health Professions Students: Greek Data from the Global Health Professions Student Survey (GHPSS)

Abstract

We conducted the GHPSS (Global Health Professions Student Survey) to obtain information regarding health profession students’ smoking habits and perceptions, exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) as well as level of knowledge and training on tobacco use and smoking cessation counseling. GHPSS is a survey for third-year students in the following fields: health visitors, dentistry, medicine, nursing and/or pharmacy. The highest tobacco use prevalence rate and exposure to SHS were recorded among health visitor students with 46.4% and 33.3% respectively. The majority of the respondents believed that their profession serves as a role model for their patients. Formal training on cessation counseling ranged between 10.7% for health visitor students to 22.4% for nursing students. The relatively high percentage of health profession students who currently smoke and the alarmingly high percentage of those exposed to SHS indicate lack of concerted efforts for implementation and effective enforcement of the anti-tobacco policy measures. Despite its significance, formal training on cessation counseling for students is strikingly low. These results indicate the urgent need to train health professional students on tobacco cessation counseling and educate them on the dangers of tobacco use, SHS and the positively influential role they can play to affect their patients’ smoking habits.

Changes in use, knowledge, beliefs and attitudes relating to tobacco among nursing and physiotherapy students: a 10‐year analysis

“…A high percentage of participation by students was achieved because the data were collected during lab sessions, which have the greatest student attendance levels. The response rates were similar to those in prevalence studies conducted in faculties of health studies in recent years in Europe, Asia and America (Chaname et al 2009, Biraghi & Tortorano 2010, Fern andez et al 2010, Valenciano et al 2010, Barbouni et al 2012, Surani et al 2012. A total of 812 students were surveyed in three points in time during a ten-year period.…”

“…These nursing and physiotherapy students consistently gave low percentages of agreement to the statement 'at this time I have enough knowledge to be able to give patients effective help to stop smoking'. Most participants felt that they should receive specific training on issues related to preventing cigarette consumption, an opinion similar to that reported in previous studies (Fern andez Garc ıa et al 2007, Barbouni et al 2012, Surani et al 2012.…”

“…Previous studies among nursing students in different countries have shown revealed a range of percentages of smokers. Among others, there were figures of 13Á5% and 28% in two studies from the USA (Patkar et al 2003, Staib et al 2006, 30Á9% in Greece (Barbouni et al 2012), 24% in Japan (Suzuki et al 2005), 17Á6% in Australia (Moxham et al 2013), 55Á6% in Peru (Chaname et al 2009), 31Á5% in Brazil (Hirata et al 2011), 41Á9% in Germany (Vitzthum et al 2013) and 48Á2% in Italy (Ficarra et al 2011). In Spain, surveys undertaken in various regions of the country have shown percentages of smokers among healthcare students of 36Á2% in 2004 (Villar et al 2004), 29Á7% and 43Á8% in 2007(Alberdi-Erice et al 2007, Fern andez Garc ıa et al 2007) and 26Á1% in 2009 (Pericas et al 2009).…”

“…Nursing and physiotherapy students have an influential role in smoking prevention (Fern andez Garc ıa et al 2007, Moxham et al 2013. The acquisition of many skills, attitudes and techniques for helping patients to stop smoking takes place during academic education (Baron-Epel et al 2004) and depends on the design and implementation of specific training programmes for students of Health Sciences (Fern andez et al 2010, Barbouni et al 2012 and effective school policies (Surani et al 2012). However, their own smoking status influences their attitudes towards being role models (Baron-Epel et al 2004).…”

Smoking behavior among third year dental students in Latin American countries: prevalence, perceptions, and risk factors

“…16 Like the findings of Warren and colleagues 14 in their analysis of 2005-2007 GHPSS data from countries around the world, our results show a high prevalence of tobacco use among dental students from several Latin American countries (33%). Contrary to the results of previous reports 13, [32][33][34] the overall prevalence of tobacco consumption was higher among female than male dental students in our study sample. However, this sex difference varied by country according to the prevalent beliefs and norms around tobacco use.…”