Doctor Survey Discussed

Posted 8th September 2023 by Dave Cross

A panel of tobacco control experts have discussed the findings from the Foundation for a Smokefree World’s Sermo’s Doctors’ Survey. The online video covers their views “on how the survey results impact smoking cessation and tobacco harm reduction efforts.” The Survey revealed that doctors are still labouring under a number of misapprehensions and confirms more needs to be done to educate them.

The survey covered over 15,000 doctors from the following nations:

China
Germany
Greece
India
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Japan
South Africa
United Kingdom
The United States

The Foundation explains: “The Doctors’ Survey was funded by a Foundation for a Smoke-Free World grant and conducted by Sermo to develop actionable insights for accelerating an end to smoking. Sermo, a private social media network for physicians in 150 countries, surveyed physicians to understand doctors’ perceptions of nicotine and reduced-risk products, and their interactions with adult patients on the issue of smoking, quitting and tobacco harm reduction tools.”

It went on to add: “Sermo established a Global Advisory Board and a National Advisory Board for the Doctors’ Survey that consisted of experts and advocates in smoking cessation in each of the 11 countries surveyed. The Advisory Boards helped develop the survey discussion guide and participated in the qualitative portion of the survey, providing insights on the findings. Sermo recruited the physicians based on their dedication to smoking cessation efforts as demonstrated by their public speaking engagements, publications and/or employment, reflected in publicly available hospital profiles and publication databases. The physicians on the Advisory Boards participated in individual interviews and were offered fair market honoraria for their engagement.”

The Foundation for a Smokefree World says the key findings from the survey are:

On average, nearly 77% of doctors mistakenly believe nicotine causes lung cancer and 78% believe it causes atherosclerosis.
While on average 87% of doctors at least moderately agree that helping patients quit smoking is a priority, lack of training and nicotine knowledge adversely impacts quitting and harm reduction advice.
Encouragingly, on average, more than 80% of physicians surveyed are at least moderately interested in cessation and tobacco harm reduction training.

The Foundation for a Smokefree World stated: “These survey findings underscore the urgency for doctors to receive proper training about nicotine and tobacco harm reduction options to help their smoking patients quit smoking.”