A survey of the training of Canadian health professionals to counsel against smoking.

Canadian schools that train health professionals were asked to evaluate the amount of teaching of counselling skills to prevent clients from starting smoking or to help them quit, the topics covered, the knowledge and counselling skill level of their graduates and whether an integrated smoking counselling program was needed for their school. Responses to a questionnaire were received from the Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies, the Assistant Dean of Postgraduate Studies and/or the Postgraduate Program Director of 165 professional schools or departments of 283 contacted (58% response rate). For those schools that replied that they taught counselling about smoking, they devoted more hours in the curriculum (range 1-11 hours) to education about the diseases caused by smoking than to counselling children or adults against smoking or helping smokers to quit. Nursing schools tended to have integrated health education curricula, and it was therefore difficult for them to identify the hours devoted exclusively to counselling about tobacco. Few of the deans or program directors of any of the professional schools estimated the knowledge and counselling skills of their graduates as superior, and a majority felt that an integrated smoking counselling curriculum was needed for their school.