Are we questioning our patients’ smoking status appropriately?

Abstract

Objective Tobacco use is one of the most important causes of preventable diseases worldwide. Doctors are responsible for their patients’ health status both by being a role model with their smoking related behaviours and by following the recommended strategies known as ‘5A’ and ‘5R’. While it is not clear what to add to the syllabi of medical faculties’ for tobacco related courses, we aimed to raise awareness about the importance of the topic by doing a research evaluating the clinicians’ implemention of the strategies in real life settings. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted between February 11-15, 2019 at our university affiliated tertiary care hospital’s blood sample collection unit. Short questionnaires that contains 12 questions were asked to the patients who had just applied to the unit after their outpatient clinic examination, They are being interviewed by medical students after obtaining their oral informed consents. Results Data from 500 patients were evaluated. Their mean age was 46,44±14,78. 56.2% of them were males. 44.4% of them were graduates of primary education. Among the admitted clinics, 75.4% were from internal medicine related clinics, the rest was from surgical clinics. Current smoking rate was 34%; 46.6% of males, 17.8% of females. Among all patients, 41% of them were asked about their smoking status. Among current smokers, 31.8% had received only oral advices, only 6% had been referred to smoking cessation clinics. The populations who have higher rates for being questioned about their smoking status were males, patients with respiratory system related symptoms, and patients who went to clinics related to thoracic problems (pulmonology, cardiology, etc.) (p<0.05). Conclusion This study showed that among 5A strategies, ‘ask’(41%), ‘advice’(31.8% of current smokers) and ‘arrange’(6% of current smokers) steps were followed significantly lower than similar international studies. Future investigations are required for the underlying reasons.

Keywords

• smoking
• outpatient
• 5A
• motivational interview