Study: Doctors Fail to Ask Adolescents About Smoking
An audit of Wisconsin Medicaid records concludes that many doctors
fail to routinely ask adolescent patients about smoking, according
to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
According to the study, 55 percent of patients ages 11 to 21 were
asked about their smoking status by their doctors. The report showed
that the younger the patient, the less likelihood the physician
was to ask about smoking.
"Previous studies may have overestimated interventions with
adolescents because they were based on physician self-report,"
said Tammy Sims, M.D., M.S., the study's lead author from the University
of Wisconsin Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center. "We
also saw a failure to address tobacco status at more than one visit.
This, coupled with their reluctance to ask younger adolescents about
smoking status, means that physicians were unlikely to identify
early experimenters."
The study was based on a review of Wisconsin Medicaid HMO files
from January 1997 to January 1999. "Through analysis of patient
charts, we have found that physicians are losing a golden opportunity
to intervene with current teen smokers and to dissuade potential
smokers among the younger teen population," Sims said.
The report is published in the journal Health Services Research.
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