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Ask the right question

Dentists should campaign against smoking

QUESTION TIME Dentists need to find out if patients are smokers and advise them as well

Dentists should be more aggressive about finding out whether patients smoke and giving them advice about quitting, researchers argue in two new reports.

The articles, in The Journal of the American Dental Association, were accompanied by an editorial by the publication's editor Michael Glick, who said dentists no longer had a choice about "embracing smoking-cessation activities".

But there are obstacles. The first may be figuring out which patients are smokers.The researchers, led by Deborah Hennrikus of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, found that the health history forms given out at dentists' offices often fail to detect young smokers.

The researchers conducted a telephone survey of more than 1,100 patients, ages 14 to 17. When they compared their answers with those on the forms, they found that the forms identified only about 57 percent of those who smoked daily.

Part of the problem, the researchers said, is that the questions on the forms were too broad. Some teenagers who smoke only sometimes do not consider themselves smokers.

So it is better simply to ask, for example, whether they have smoked within the last 30 days, the researchers said. Another obstacle lies with some dentists themselves. The second study, led by Carol Kunzel of the Columbia School of Dental and Oral Surgery, surveyed dentists and found that most said they did not know enough to counsel patients about smoking. Some said it should not be part of their jobs.

The New York Times

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