Impact of a novel interprofessional dental and pharmacy student tobacco cessation education programme on dental patient outcomes

ABSTRACT

The dental setting presents a unique opportunity to assist patients with tobacco cessation. Many dental providers do not feel prepared to provide tobacco cessation, particularly with regard to education on pharmacological treatments. An interprofessional practice experience with dental and pharmacy students provides a novel approach to tobacco cessation in the dental setting, but it is not known whether such methods affect patient outcomes. The goal of the study was to examine the impact of a novel dental and pharmacy student tobacco cessation education programme on patient knowledge gained, barriers to utilising cessation medications, quit intentions, and quit behaviours as compared to standard care. Dental patients who were seen at the dental admissions clinic of a dental school on interprofessional care (IPC) days and received tobacco cessation education from the dental-pharmacy student team (N = 25) were compared with dental patients at the clinic seen on Standard Care (SC) days (N = 25). Patients completed a post-appointment survey and a 4-week follow-up survey. IPC patients reported greater perceived knowledge post-appointment and at follow-up regarding tobacco cessation compared with SC patients and had greater intentions to utilise medication to assist with tobacco cessation. At follow-up there were no differences between groups in terms of quit attempts. Among patients who made a quit attempt those in the IPC group were more likely to have set a quit date and contacted a provider for assistance regarding tobacco cessation. Dental-pharmacy student interprofessional tobacco cessation may be an innovative way to provide tobacco cessation education to dental patients and provide students with interprofessional practice experiences.

KEY WORDS:

• Interprofessional care
• interprofessional education
• tobacco cessation
• dental patients
• pharmacy
• surveys

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support from Temple University School of Pharmacy, Temple University School of Pharmacy’s Experiential Office for assistance with coordinating the schedule of the practice experience, and Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry, particularly the dental faculty who assisted in the development and operations of the interprofessional collaboration: Drs. Maria Fornatora, Laurie McPhail, Chizobam Idahosa, and Elizabeth Tweddale. Additionally, we would like to thank the patients at the dental school for agreeing to participate in the study.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.