Health professional students' perceptions regarding their role in tobacco control: findings from the Global Health Professional Students Survey, Pakistan, 2011

Perception of health professions students of their role model status in Toombak cessation: A cross-sectional study from Sudan

INTRODUCTION

Health professionals are to play an essential and effective role in tobacco control. Toombak is a popular form of smokeless tobacco, locally made and used among Sudanese. It is associated with oral and systemic health hazards, particularly oral cancer. This study was set out to assess health professions students' perception of their status as future role models for their patients and the public regarding Toombak use cessation and to explore socio-cognitive covariates of perceived role model status.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013-2014 using a self-administered questionnaire among health professions students enrolled in Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Nursing colleges in Khartoum state, Sudan. A total of 1530 participants were recruited from colleges using a cluster stratified sampling procedure.

RESULTS

The majority of the participants (88.2%) were 19-22 year old, females showed predominance (66.1%). Most of the participants (69.7%) scored good knowledge of Toombak-related therapies. The majority (97%) had a positive attitude towards banning Toombak use in public. Half of the participants (50.4%) confirmed availability of Toombak control policy in their college, while 66% reported receiving training in Toombak cessation. Only 9.2% of the participants reported that they have ever used Toombak; among them, 69.5% were current daily users. Less than half (47.8%) reported a positive perception of their status as a role model. Logistic regression model revealed that tobacco cessation training, availability of college policy and positive attitudes towards banning Toombak use in public were strong predictors of with a positive perception of role model status.

CONCLUSION

Imposing Toombak control policies within colleges combined with formal training in cessation methods, would reinforce the positive perception of health professions students as a role model, particularly the students themselves seem to be ready for such systematic training.

Awareness and support for anti-tobacco policies among health professional students in Pakistan: findings from the Global Health Professional Students Survey, 2011

Background

Health professional (HP) students may have an important role in controlling future tobacco use of their patients, and public at large. It is important to understand their existing level of awareness and support for national anti-tobacco policies. We thus aim to explore Pakistani HP students’ existing attitudes towards national anti-tobacco policy and examine factors associated with lack of awareness, and support amongst them.

Methods

Secondary data analysis of the Global Health Professional Students Survey, Pakistan, 2011 was performed. Study population included 4,235 health professional students enrolled in third year of graduate level HP programs. The policy support metrics were developed using six questions from the survey. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to analyze association between HP students’ awareness, and support for anti-tobacco policy (outcome variables), and various socio-demographic, attitudinal, and knowledge related factors. Descriptive statistics are reported as proportions, and results of logistic regression analysis were reported as odds ratios with 95% confidence interval.

Results

Overall, among HP students, 10.8% (n = 391) were current smokers, and 26.7% (n = 965) of them were cigarette experimenters. Almost half, (46.1%, n = 1666) of the HP students did not have an awareness of the official policy banning tobacco use in their school buildings and clinics; and only one in ten (9.4%, n = 338) of them did not support anti-tobacco policies. Students were less likely to be aware if they had second hand exposure at home/work (OR = 0.73, 95% CI (0.57-0.92), p-value <0.01). Furthermore, students who were current smokers (OR = 0.21, 95% CI (0.08-0.56), or cigarette experimenters (OR = 0.42, 95% CI (0.26-0.70), p-value <0.01), were least likely to support anti-tobacco policies.

Conclusion

We found that HP students lack awareness of anti-tobacco policies; and were less likely to support such efforts if they were current smokers. These findings may help in understanding existing perceptions of the future care givers in Pakistan. Future anti-tobacco efforts and HP training programs may target the smoking HPs to enhance their full support in this regard.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13011-015-0001-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.