Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 2 Oral Health Division, Ministry of Health, Malaysia
  • 3 bOral Health Division, Ministry of Health, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 5 Department of Community Oral Health and Clinical Prevention, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Faculty of Dentistry, MAHSA University
MyJurnal

Abstract

This study assesses dental students’ and patients’ perceptions on the role of dental students as smoking cessation counsellors as well as the patient’s quit rate at the University of XX. Materials and methods: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to all senior dental students (n=154) in XX University and telephone call interviews were conducted on their patients (n=169) who received smoking cessation counselling from September 2010 to June 2013. Results: Response rates for dental students and patients were 68.2% and 67.3% respectively. Most of the dental students in this study were females (72.3%) whereas the majority of patients were males (97.6%). An average of six months follow up indicated that 22.5% of patients had quit smoking, 65.3% reduced the number of cigarettes smoked and 6.5% had relapsed. About a third of patients surveyed (33.1%) believed that smoking cessation counselling was extremely helpful compared to what students perceived (5.7%, p