The Doctors’ Survey was funded by a Foundation for a Smoke-Free World grant and conducted by Sermo to develop actionable insights for accelerating an end to smoking. Sermo, a private social media network for physicians in 150 countries, surveyed physicians to understand doctors’ perceptions of nicotine and reduced-risk products, and their interactions with adult patients on the issue of smoking, quitting and tobacco harm reduction tools.
Survey of more than 15,000 physicians in 11 countries uncovers need for further education (China, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States).
- On average, nearly 77% of doctors mistakenly believe nicotine causes lung cancer and 78% believe it causes atherosclerosis.
- While on average 87% of doctors at least moderately agree that helping patients quit smoking is a priority, lack of training and nicotine knowledge adversely impacts quitting and harm reduction advice.
- Encouragingly, on average, more than 80% of physicians surveyed are at least moderately interested in cessation and tobacco harm reduction training.
A panel of tobacco control experts, including Dr. Sudhanshu Patwardhan, Dr. Riccardo Polosa, and Dr. Jed Rose, discuss their views on how the survey results might impact smoking cessation and tobacco harm reduction efforts.
