A questionnaire based survey to assess knowledge, attitude and practice regarding nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) among dental students in Navi Mumbai

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice among the dental students including interns and postgraduate students towards Nicotine Replacement Therapy(NRT). This is a cross sectional survey done among 300 randomly chosen dental students from dental colleges in Navi Mumbai by distributing a self-prepared questionnaire about the awareness and use on NRT. Later, descriptive analysis was done on the data collected. Eighty four percent of the dental students were aware of NRT. Significant awareness was seen among the dental students, but only 28% of the dental students had the practice of always prescribing patients with NRT, 40% of the dental students prescribed NRT sometimes and the remaining 32% never prescribed NRT for tobacco cessation. The awareness on NRT and the practice of prescribing patients with NRT for tobacco cessation was not proportionate.