Outcome of a four-hour smoking cessation counselling workshop for medical students

Introduction Lack of smoking cessation education in undergraduate medical training hinders healthcare professionals in providing adequate tobacco cessation counselling. We developed a comprehensive 4-h smoking cessation counselling course for medical students that is easy to incorporate in a medical school curriculum, and assessed its short-term outcome for knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Material and Methods Eighty-eight medical students (53f, 35 m) were educated by a doctoral student in five identical 4-h courses. A 45-min theoretical introduction was followed by patient-physician role-playing by student pairs. Knowledge, skills, and attitude were assessed before and 4 weeks after the course by questionnaires, and by blinded analysis of pre- and post-course videos of a five-minute standardized patient situation. Results Knowledge: Before the course 10.6 (mean, SD: 2.7) questions out of 29 were answered correctly, and increased to 19.2 (3.6) after the course (p < 0.0005). Major features of the students’ counselling skills improved. Significant and highly relevant attitude changes reflected increased motivation to counselling smokers. Conclusions Implementing a four-hour smoking intervention workshop into a medical curriculum was highly effective in improving students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes towards smoking counselling, as well as providing them with additional clinical competencies

Smoking Cessation Counselling: What Makes Her or Him a Good Counsellor? Can Counselling Technique Be Deduced to Other Important Lifestyle Counselling Competencies?

Smoking is a major health concern in both developed and developing countries. Smoking cessation counselling is of major importance for health care providers such as physicians, psychologists, nurses and many further therapeutic workers. We recently have demonstrated feasibility of a 4-hour “student-to-student course” (1 hour of scientific background and 3 hours of role plays and intervision) that provided knowledge, skills and attitude to smoking cessation counselling. A key question remains whether such knowledge, skills and attitude can be further deduced to key public health or lifestyle counselling areas like body weight management in overweight persons, management of addictions like alcohol and substance or situation (e.g., Internet and shopping) abuse, management of physical activity/exercise or lifestyle modification like workaholic lifestyle. The authors try to develop such a base for enabling patients to adapt healthier behaviour and give objectives for such counselling situations including the elaboration of clear therapeutic aims for counsellors

Differential cytology profiles in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in COVID-19 patients A descriptive observation and comparison with other corona viruses, Influenza virus, Haemophilus influenzae, and Pneumocystis jirovecii

Brochoalvelolar lavages (BALs) from patients suffering from hospitalized infections with SARS-CoV-2, other corona viruses (human coronavirus (HCoV)-229E, HCoV-OC43, HCoV-NL63, and HCoV-HKU1), Influenza virus type A and B, Haemophilus influenzae and Pneumocystis jirovecii were compared cytopathologically. The aim of the study was to evaluate if the cellular profile detectable in BAL may be specific for the respective pathogens and could lead to diagnosis of COVID-19 even in the absence of PCR results. Differential cytology and flow cytometry datasets of 62 patients were observed and compared. We observed a significant association between individual cell pattern changes and the causing pathogen, but no general cell distribution pattern. The cytology pattern of the BAL fluid in COVID-19 is not specific enough to use it as a sole diagnostic criterion, although it may support clinical decision makin

[Experience of disease, relationship and sexuality in patients with COPD].

Experience of disease, relationship and sexuality in patients with COPDObjectives: We aimed to determine the impacts of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on the patient's relationship and sexuality. Methods: In a multicentric study 105, 52 of them female, non-selected COPD patients who were married or in a partnership were interviewed about their partnership and sexuality. Results: Average age was 64.1 ± 9.2 years. Patients with a more severe COPD had a lower Self-Illness-Separation (SIS), i. e. they reveal significantly higher burden of suffering. Life satisfaction and satisfaction with partnership, sexuality and sexual intercourse has decreased significantly since the diagnosis (p < 0.05). Desire and frequency to be sexually active have also decreased (p < 0.001). 61 % of the respondents felt increasingly dependent from their partner. Conclusion: The results underline that patients have a stage-dependent emotional distance to their illness, the partnership develops in direction of dependency, and sexuality deteriorates with increasing severity of the COPD. The PRISM test proved to be a great way to illustrate this development and to start a conversation with the patients about it. COPD patients and their partners should be referred to the potential impact of the disease on their partnership and sexuality and should be supported in their potential solutions considering gender-specific aspects

Additional file 2: Table S2. of Outcome of a four-hour smoking cessation counselling workshop for medical students

Externally Assumed Assessment of Attitude, Analyzed by the Two Standardized Patient Videos Pre- and 4 Weeks Post-Course (Visual Analog Scale [VAS] Results). (DOCX 18 kb

Additional file 5: Figure S1. of Outcome of a four-hour smoking cessation counselling workshop for medical students

Knowledge: Before and 4 Weeks After the Course. (DOCX 16 kb

Additional file 8: of Outcome of a four-hour smoking cessation counselling workshop for medical students

Anonymous Evaluation by the Participants 3 Days and 4 Weeks after the Course. (DOCX 20 kb