Awareness of current mobile apps for smoking cessation among the dental and medical practitioners in Saudi Arabia

A.S. Alqahtani

Department of Preventive Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Alkharj, Saudi Arabia. ab.alkahtani@psau.edu.sa

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• Dentistry
• Health Technology

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed at assessing whether the dental and medical practitioners in Saudi Arabia are aware of the smoking cessation smartphone applications and their opinions about this method used in smoking cessation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A self-reporting questionnaire was designed to assess the level of knowledge and awareness among the dental and medical practitioners regarding the smartphone mobile applications for smoking cessation. The content of the questionnaire was validated and sent to individual physicians through email, WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms, which also contained a consent form and explanation of the study. Responses were summarized using descriptive statistics by frequencies and percentages. A Chi-square test was used to observe the differences in opinions of smoking cessation apps between smokers and non-smokers among all the participants.

RESULTS: A total of 420 responses were obtained from the dental and medical professionals (291 males and 129 females) in different ranks. Among all the participants, 46.7% were in the age range of 30-40 years. The profession of the participants was divided into four groups and general dental practitioners are the most respondents compared to other practitioners. Among all the participants, 31% were smokers and the rest were non-smokers. Overall, 12.6% of participants and 20.8% of participants who were smokers were aware of the mobile applications which are used for smoking cessation.

CONCLUSIONS: The dental and medical practitioners in Saudi Arabia are not relatively acquainted with mobile apps for smoking cessation.

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