A national survey of training and smoking cessation services provided in community pharmacies in Thailand.

Over the past few years, several training programs have been run in support of smoking cessation services within community pharmacy circles in Thailand. These have included a comprehensive training program offered by the Thai Pharmacy Network for Tobacco Control (TPNTC) and brief training programs run by other agencies. This study provides an estimate of the scale of smoking cessation activities among Thai pharmacies, and examines the impact of both the brief and comprehensive training programs on the provision of smoking cessation services. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 3,600 Thai community pharmacists. A total of 1,001 questionnaires were returned (response rate: 27.8%). Smoking cessation services were provided by 71.1% of the respondents, and 47.4% of such services gave only brief advice. Comprehensive services (defined by the 5A's: ask, advise, assess, assist, and arrange follow-up) accounted for 15.3% of the respondents. Only 293 pharmacists (29.6%) said they had received cessation training; 62.5% of whom had received such training from TPNTC. The receipt of brief and comprehensive training was associated with a higher rate of the provision of brief advice, when compared with no training, showing adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of 2.93 (95% CI, 1.66-5.18) and 5.93 (95% CI, 3.18-10.17) respectively, while evidence of differences between these training programs was not observed, having an adjusted OR of 1.94 (95% CI, .89-4.21). TPNTC trained pharmacists were 4.98 times (95% CI, 2.24-11.05) more likely than those who received other brief training to provided the 5A's cessation services. All types of training program help to promote the provision of brief counseling by pharmacists. Comprehensive training is associated with the increased provision of both 4A's and 5A's cessation services.