ATTITUDES OF RESPIRATORY CARE PRACTITIONERS AND STUDENTS REGARDING PULMONARY PREVENTION

Study objectives: (1) To examine attitudes of respiratory care practit ioners (RCPs) and RCP students toward pulmonary disease prevention beh aviors and their role in promoting them, (2) To compare RCPs' attitude s regarding pulmonary prevention with existing medical student survey data. Design: Cross-sectional survey, Setting: Three sites (Valhalla, NY;Winston-Salem, NC; Houston, TX). Participants: One hundred ninety R CPs and 164 RCP students compared with 5,744 medical students, Measure ment and results: Subjects completed a 35-item RCP Preventive Pulmonar y Attitude (PPA) Survey using a five-point scale (1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree), A higher score indicates a more positive attitud e toward prevention. RCP total scores averaged 117.6 (SD, 15.7; range, 52 to 160). RCP student total scores were significantly higher than R CP practitioners. No significant differences were observed by gender o r by type of patient served (pediatric vs adult), RCPs with a history of tobacco smoking had significantly lower scores than RCPs who had ne ver smoked, Most, but not all, respondents acknowledged the importance of patients with chronic lung disease receiving a yearly influenza va ccination. Total PPA scores for medical students were significantly lo wer than scores for both RCPs and RCP students. Significant difference s were noted for a number of individual items, Conclusions: In general , RCPs had positive attitudes regarding the importance of prevention c ounseling and their role in providing this to patients, This is import ant given their potential as a resource in pulmonary prevention effort s. More attention to inclusion of training and evaluation of RCP effec tiveness in promoting respiratory health is needed.