Training Malaysian Pharmacy Undergraduates with Knowledge and Skills on Smoking Cessation.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of an online training module, Certified Smoking Cessation Service Provider (CSCSP), developed for practicing pharmacists to equip pharmacy students with knowledge necessary for smoking cessation counseling and to assess the changes in student knowledge and skills regarding smoking cessation following training.

Design: Sixty third-year and 80 fourth-year pharmacy undergraduates (N=140) were given access to an online module, the main intervention in the study. Two linkable questionnaires were administered to assess students' preintervention and postintervention knowledge.

Tobacco-related medical education and physician interventions with parents who smoke: Survey of Canadian family physicians and pediatricians.

Objective: To examine the relationship between physicians' tobacco-related medical training and physicians' confidence in their tobacco-related skills and smoking-related interventions with parents of child patients.

Design: Mailed survey.

Setting: Canada.

Characteristics and outcomes of doctors in a substance dependence monitoring programme in Canada: prospective descriptive study.

Objective: To describe the characteristics at enrollment and outcomes of doctors in a substance dependence monitoring programme in Canada.

Design: Prospective descriptive study.

Setting: Provincial physician health programme, Canada.

Views of Ontarians about health professionals' smoking cessation advice.

Background: Health professionals have important roles in helping smokers quit. However, it is not known how the public, especially smokers, view smoking cessation advice from different health professionals.

Methods: We added questions regarding opinions and experiences with health professionals' smoking cessation advice to the 2002 CAMH Monitor, an annual random-digit-dialled survey of adult Ontarians.

Do total smoking bans affect the recruitment and retention of adolescents in inpatient substance abuse treatment programs? A 5-year medical chart review, 2001-2005.

Adolescents engaged in substance abuse treatment manifest a rate of cigarette smoking approximately four times higher than that of youth in the general population ( approximately 80% vs. 20%) and a high rate of smoking persistence into adulthood. Although there has been a shift toward the implementation of no-smoking policies in substance abuse treatment programs, few studies have examined the relation between cigarette-smoking bans and key clinical outcomes.

Pharmacists' smoking cessation practices: relationship to their knowledge and skills, attitudes, and perceptions of roles.

Objective: To assess factors associated with pharmacists' practices regarding patients' smoking and smoking cessation.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis.

Setting: Four Canadian provinces (Ontario, Québec, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island).

Family Medicine Residents' Performance with Detected Versus Undetected Simulated Patients Posing as Problem Drinkers.

Background: Simulated patients are commonly used to evaluate medical trainees. Unannounced simulated patients provide an accurate measure of physician performance.

Purpose: To determine the effects of detection of SPs on physician performance, and identify factors leading to detection.

Family medicine residents' beliefs, attitudes and performance with problem drinkers: a survey and simulated patient study.

Fifty-six second-year family medicine residents completed a survey on their knowledge and beliefs about problem drinkers. Most residents felt responsible for screening and counseling, were confident in their clinical skills in these areas, and scored well on related knowledge questions. However, only 18% felt that problem drinkers would often respond to brief counseling sessions with physicians while 36% felt that moderate drinking was a reasonable goal for patients with severe alcohol dependence.

Physician behavior towards male and female problem drinkers: a controlled study using simulated patients.

Background: Evidence suggests that physicians are less likely to identify alcohol problems in females than in males.

Purpose: To compare the performance of family medicine residents with male and female simulated patients (SPs) posing as problem drinkers.

Methods: Fifty-six family medicine residents completed a baseline survey on knowledge and attitudes towards problem drinkers.