J Natl Med Assoc
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The pediatric resident training on tobacco project: interim findings.
The Pediatric Residency Training on Tobacco Project is a four-year randomized prospective study of the efficacy of training pediatric residents to intervene on tobacco. At the start of the study (baseline), the pediatric residents uniformly agreed that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and tobacco use pose serious threats to the health of young people, and pediatricians should play a leadership role in the antismoking arena. However, very few went beyond advising patients and parents to modify their behavior by providing actual assistance, and many of them lacked necessary tobacco intervention skills and knowledge. We hypothesized that both standard training and special training programs would yield positive changes in intervention skills and activities, although the changes would be greater in residents exposed to the special training condition. In the present report, we present two-year outcome data from the resident tobacco surveys and objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) administered to independent waves of third-year residents in each experimental condition at baseline and year 2. ⋯ The two-year findings from the pediatric tobacco project are encouraging and suggest that the special training program is efficacious, although aspects of the program in need of improvement were identified.