Brief Tobacco Cessation Counselling: Mini Train-the-trainers Program

Participating hospitals/clinics will invite 100-120 internal medicine physicians to take part in the brief smoking counselling intervention project and participate in a half-day mini TTT training program. The training will cover the following topics:

• Goal and the details of the brief smoking counselling intervention;
• Objective of the mini TTT training program;
• Tobacco epidemic and control measures in China and the world;
• Physicians' role in tobacco control;
• Health risks of smoking, secondhand smoke exposure;
• WHO FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) and the MPOWER measures;
• Brief smoking cessation counselling (AWARD model), and counselling skill with practice;
• Placebo counselling and counselling skill with practice.

On the training day, the investigators will explain at the beginning of the workshop the purpose of the training, and the details of the brief smoking cessation intervention to all physicians who attend the training workshop. The investigators will explain that the participation is totally voluntary, and the participants will be invited to complete a paper-and-pencil survey before and right after the training workshop, perform smoking cessation counselling or placebo counselling among patients at their clinics, and complete online survey at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Agreement to participate in the training program will be considered as consent and participants are required to sign a written consent form.

At the end of the workshop, participants should be confident to perform brief smoking cessation counselling and placebo counselling for patients.

We hypothesize that the training program will increase the participants' knowledge level of smoking and secondhand smoke exposure and the important role of physicians in tobacco control, increase their skill and confidence of performing smoking cessation counselling, and generate stronger support for tobacco control policies.