AFRICAN-AMERICAN PHYSICIANS AND SMOKING CESSATION COUNSELING

While African-American physicians can play a key role in encouraging b lack patients who smoke to quit, little is known about the views and a ctivities of these physicians with respect to antitobacco programming. In the process of developing a protocol for encouraging physicians' s moking cessation intervention, 96 African-American physicians complete d a survey indicating their knowledge, attitudes, and practices relati ng to stop smoking counseling. Few physicians reported patient help-se eking behavior and 47.9% cited lack of patient motivation as a key bar rier to intervention, Only 46.8% believed that it is possible to accom plish a lot of cessation help in a few minutes time, and 34.4% believe d that setting up and maintaining an office protocol would require a g reat deal of effort. Explaining health risks (71.9%) and enrolling pat ients in programs (66.6%) were perceived as keys to patient cessation, Fewer than half of the physicians surveyed discuss specific strategie s for quitting with their patients. Physicians indicated a willingness to offer more counseling in the future and were open to a range of st rategies for learning more about effective approaches. Our Findings su pport the need for dissemination of such information, particularly amo ng specialists, to support antitobacco efforts among African-American physicians.