The value of online education in postgraduate smoking cessation training

The value of online education in postgraduate smoking cessation training <bold>Introduction:</bold> Medical students and later physicians have a major influence on their patients and the community regarding smoking habits. A lack of training has been suggested as a major barrier preventing physicians from supporting smokers willing to quit. This case-control study evaluated the value of online teaching module on smoking cessation for postgraduate students. <bold>Method:</bold> This study was conducted at Chongqing Medical University from 2022 to 2023, and a total of 370 medical students were recruited. Participants were assigned to intervention group and control group respectively. Graduate students in the intervention group received online cessation training in the form of an elective course, while the control group did not receive any training on smoking cessation. Perceptions of medical students' responsibilities in tobacco control were assessed, and the scores of the two groups were compared by an examination to compare the differences in terms of perception and professional knowledge of the two groups. <bold>Results:</bold> The sample included 370 participants, 163 of whom (44.05 %) received online cessation training. After comparison, there was no significant difference between the intervention group and the control group in terms of smoking cognition scores (t=1.64, p=0.10). However, the intervention group's total score on the test for tobacco control knowledge was significantly higher than that of the control group (t=2.22, p=0.03). Additionally, upon separately analyzing multiple-choice questions, the intervention group's scores were also higher than those of the control group (t=2.16, p=0.03). Nevertheless, there was no significant difference between the two groups in scores on single-choice questions (t=0.65, p=0.52). <bold>Conclusions:</bold> The results indicate that online teaching can obviously improve graduate students' mastery of smoking cessation knowledge. Due to medical students generally having good awareness of smoking cessation, no significant differences were observed in terms of cognition.