Evaluation of the Opinions of Family Physicians on Some Tobacco Products
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Evaluation of the Opinions of Family Physicians on Some Tobacco Products Hatice Nilden Arslan1 · Muhammet Ali Oruc2 · Ozlem Terzi1 · Nazmi Bilir3
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the opinions of family physicians, who have an important place in preventive health services, on some tobacco products. The sample of the descriptive study was composed of family physicians working in 408 family health centers serving Samsun, Turkey. The data were obtained by distributing a questionnaire prepared by the researchers to volunteer family physicians during in-service trainings organized by the Samsun Provincial Directorate of Health in February and March 2019. In all, 322 (79%) family physicians who participated in the trainings were included in the study. The average age of the participating physicians was 45.0 ± 7.6 years; 61.5% of them were male. More than one third (36.0%) of family physicians said that they had never smoked, while 23.6% of them were current smokers. Most (85.0%) said that they knew what an electronic cigarette was, 94.7% of them were familiar with hookahs, and 9.0% knew about I Quit Ordinary Smoking (IQOS). It is important to inform all healthcare professionals, and especially family physicians, about those products marketed by the tobacco industry as “less harmful” than cigarettes. It is thought that providing appropriate counseling services to these professionals will contribute to the fight against tobacco use. Keywords Cigarette · Electronic cigarette · Family physician · Hookah · IQOS
Introduction The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats facing the world. It kills more than 8 million people every year. More than 7 million of these deaths are the result of direct tobacco use, while about 1.2 million are nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke [1]. The products made entirely or partly from the leaves of tobacco as raw materials manufactured to be used for “smoking, sucking, chewing or snuffing” are defined as tobacco products. Cigarettes, hookahs, pipes, cigars, bidis (small thin hand-rolled cigarettes), snuff, kreteks (clove cigarettes), wrapping tobacco, and chewing tobacco are the main tobacco products. Cigarettes are the most commonly used
* Hatice Nilden Arslan [email protected] 1
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey
2
Provincial Health Directorate, Samsun, Turkey
3
Ankara, Turkey
among these products, and the word “cigarette” is often used in place of “tobacco” [2, 3]. It is important to prevent the interference of the tobacco industry from controlling the global tobacco epidemic and to reduce the impact of tobacco use on public health [4]. The tobacco industry targets children and young people directly by using various advertising tactics, and a new healththreatening product portfolio has emerged in recent years [5]. Hookahs, electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), and similar new products are marketed especiall
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