Abstract
Aim and Methods: A cross-sectional study surveying GPs/hospitalists was conducted in Portugal in order to assess self-reported barriers with physicians’ brief intervention on smoking cessation. Self-administered questionnaires were collected during national medical conferences. Participants were asked to score barriers to intervene in brief smoking cessation using a Likert scale. Systematic and consecutive sampling were carried out. Descriptive and inferential analysis was performed using chi-squared and McNemar tests.
Results: Response rate was 64%. Of the 456 participants, 38.9.% were males and 35.7% were GPs; median age was 37 years (24-70). Among participants 69.5% reported not applying 5As brief intervention in routine clinical practice. The higher scored barriers to brief cessation counselling were intervening in non-motivated smokers (73.2%) and poor cessation training (62.1%), p<0.001; followed by time constraints (55.6%), and belief on smoking cessation poor efficacy (51.4%), p>0.05. Sex, age, medical speciality, training in smoking cessation, and smoking behaviour did not influence how physicians scored the barriers. The only exception was that younger physicians valorated significantly more lack of training as a main barrier to intervene in smokers while compared with older physicians (OR=1.22; 95%CI:1.07-1.40, p=0.003).
Conclusions: The great majority of physicians do not intervene systematically in smoking-cessation. Most score high the barriers to intervene in smokers, and report false beliefs, highlighting the need for training programs including motivational skills by qualified experts.
Footnotes
Cite this article as Eur Respir J 2022; 60: Suppl. 66, 2333.
This article was presented at the 2022 ERS International Congress, in session “-”.
This is an ERS International Congress abstract. No full-text version is available. Further material to accompany this abstract may be available at www.ers-education.org (ERS member access only).
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