Overcoming barriers to tobacco cessation counselling in dental students.

Purpose: Tobacco use screening and brief intervention is recognised as an effective available preventive health service; yet, this service is still not routinely offered to dental patients by clinicians, despite dental schools generally providing some form of tobacco cessation counselling (TCC) by including it in their dental curriculum. A pilot study was therefore carried out to more clearly identify barriers that prevented the delivery of this service to tobacco-using patients at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine and educational initiatives that might overcome these barriers.

Materials And Methods: A survey of faculty and students asked participants to rank their knowledge, preparation and comfort levels in performing TCC as well as their belief as to the importance of such training in the dental curriculum.