Doctors Can Help Influence Teens’ Attitudes About Smoking

Doctors can help influence teens’ attitudes and knowledge about smoking, and can help convince those who’ve already started smoking to think about quitting, a new study suggests.

A study of 5,145 teens found that a doctor’s advice about smoking and screening for tobacco use was associated with a teen’s healthier attitude toward smoking, HealthDay reports. Doctor screening and advice improved the teens’ knowledge about tobacco-related health problems. Teen smokers who received a doctor’s advice about quitting smoking were more likely to plan to stop smoking in six months. Teens who were screened for tobacco use had significantly more attempts to quit smoking, than those who were not screened or advised about smoking.

“Physicians’ tobacco-related interactions with adolescents seemed to positively impact their attitudes, knowledge, intentions to smoke, and quitting behaviors,” the authors wrote in the journal Pediatrics.