Work

Knowledge and Practices related to Smoking Cessation support among Romanian General Practitioner's

Year: 2016

Type: article

Abstract: Background The prevalence of smoking during pregnancy is very high among pregnant women in Romania, despite the programs for smoking cessation. General Practitioners can play an important role in initiating smoking cessation on pregnant women given routine care during prenatal visits. This paper explores the knowledge and attitudes of General Practitioners (GP) from Mures county with regard to smoking risks and cessation interventions for pregnant women and to identify the barriers and weaknesses of prior interventions. Methods A cross-sectional survey was done on 69 General Practitioners before and after 1-day training course on the 5A steps for smoking cessation. Results Regardless of the high level of smoking during pregnancy and the fact that 72.5% of GPs have more than 20 years of experience, the interest and trust in smoking cessation programs was moderate low. At baseline, most don’t keep track of information given to pregnant smokers about cessation (60.2%), don’t assist them after giving the advice (40.6%), don’t have qualified personnel and support for cessation interventions (85.3%), and prefer more brochures and posters than discussions with pregnant women about smoking. Importantly, 21.7% of GPs themselves are smokers, and 26.1 quitted in the last years. Conclusions Lack of time and support plus GPs personal addiction to smoking, and lack of interest and knowledge of pregnant women about smoking risks were identified as barriers in helping pregnant women to quit. Using these data, we can develop future improvements in our training strategies to reduce the risk of smoking-induced harms to the mother and the fetus. Keywords: smoking, pregnant women, risk communication, intervention Key message: KAP surveys can show us the strenghts and weaknesses of community interventions

Source: European Journal of Public Health

DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckw175.085