Assessment of oral health professionals' knowledge, attitudes and practices toward tobacco use and control in the United Arab Emirates

PLEASE NOTE: This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community: please click Download and log in with a valid BU account to access. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact open-help@bu.edu.Thesis (D.Sc.D.)--Boston University, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, 2003 (Health Policy and Health Services Research).Includes bibliography: leaves 191-201.Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of health providers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) toward tobacco use and control, and to compare it to other health providers. Methods: An anonymous KAP self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 1460 oral health providers and physicians in the main cities of the UAE. Except for the private dental clinics in Dubai, which received the questionnaires by mail, distributing and collecting the questionnaires was done personally by the primary investigator from September to December 2001. ResuIts: the response rate was 64.4%. The prevalence of tobacco use among the health care providers was 9.3%. The use of tobacco inversely influenced their interest in, and tobacco control activities. More than two thirds of them were considered moderate in terms of Knowledge and had a positive attitude toward tobacco control. However, Tobacco control services were not a routine practice of majority of health care providers. Physicians were better than dentists in tobacco control activities. Attending tobacco control course improved the tobacco control activities of the health care providers. However, 88. 1% of them didn’t have the training. Conclusion: the tobacco use rate is relatively low among the health care providers. Certain steps should be taken to reduce it more. The provision tobacco control services for patients are not a routine practice among the health care providers. The authorities in the UAE should develop, implement and enforce comprehensive clinical guidelines in tobacco control. Also, there is an imperative need for tobacco control training courses