Purposes: The purposes of this descriptive correlational study were to assess knowledge and attitude related to smoking, smoking cessation counselling activity, and to identify predictors of smoking cessation counselling activity among oral health care team(OHCT) in a community.
Method: All of oral health care personnels employed by university dental hospital, dental hospital, dental clinic and dental clinic of health center in a community were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. Of the oral health personnel surveyed, 760(88.5%) returned completed questionnaires.
Results: OHCT had a relatively positive attitude toward the their, roles and responsibilities about smoking cessation counselling activity. However, smoking cessation counselling activity was not a routine part of dental practice. Moreover, the level of smoking cessation counselling activity was significantly different by working place. OHCT who working at the university dental hospital, dental hospital and dental clinic of health center were more actively participate in smoking cessation counselling activity than OHCT who working at the dental clinic. Smoking cessation counselling activity was correlated with knowledge of smoking, attitudes to smoking related issues, and self-efficacy of smoking cessation counselling activity. In the final stepwise multiple regression, smoking cessation activity was predicted by OHCT´ s working place, attitudes to related to smoking issues, and self-efficacy of counselling knowledge and skills,
Conclusion: OHCT need to participate routinely and actively in smoking cessation counselling activity. For OHCT to effectively counsel and intervene patients regarding smoking cessation, it is essential to integrate smoking cessation intervention education into dental school curricula and to offer continuing education smoking cessation intervention to practicing OHCT.
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