Smoking cessation: the role of dentists
Australia: The effectiveness dentists helping patients to quit smoking is not conclusively established. A study at the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Sydney investigated whether graphic images of mouth and throat cancer in a national anti-smoking campaign would create a higher demand for help and advice at dental practices.
The research entailed a cross-sectional survey of dentists and patients at private dental practices in New South Wales, Australia. Questions comprised smoking practices and attitudes toward smoking cessation activities in dental practice. Although most patients reported an increased level of awareness about smoking and its health effects after seeing the explicit health warning images, there was no demand for advice from dentists. In addition, results showed that dentists had low expectations about their patients' motivation to stop smoking.
Professor Eli Schwarz, Faculty Dean and lead researcher explains there are two main reasons for this. “Patients’ perceptions of dentists are not connected to a dentist’s role as a preventively oriented health worker, whose interests are of a general health nature. Thus, they don’t expect dentists to deal with those matters and don’t trust their advice in those matters,” says Schwarz. He adds that dentists feel uncomfortable raising issues with their patients that they perceive as marginal to their main focus. Because most dentists are small business owners , they are reluctant to challenge their patients if they are ‘behaving badly’, because they are concerned it will affect their business relationship. “It would also seem that dentists are ill-prepared for actually providing education for their patients, since none of them reported handing out any written/printed materials to their patients,” he explains.
Schwarz feels that with the effects of smoking being so well known, it should not be difficult for dentists to find talking points in relation to oral and dental health with their patients.
In addition, they should take on the responsibility of being actively engaged in supporting their patients’ welfare. “Dentists should be able to diagnose the harmful effects of smoking habits in the oral environments when they conduct oral examinations or record medical histories. There is no reason why dentists should not be able to advise patients on changing habits, both from an oral health point of view and from a general health point of view,” he says.
In the future, Schwarz plans to expand the scope of the study to include more dentists. More members of staff at the faculty are now focusing on this topic and are expected to further elucidate these relationships and behaviours.
Further reading:
‘Patient demand for smoking cessation advice in dentist offices after introduction of graphic health warnings in Australia’, Australian Dental Journal, Volume 53 Issue 3, Pages 208 – 216.