Handheld-assisted tobacco interventions: Assessing the efficacy and feasibility of a PDA-based smoking cessation program as an educational training tool among medical students

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disability and death in the United States and is associated with numerous deleterious health outcomes. There is an increasing need to develop new strategies and interventions to encourage smoking cessation among current smokers. Evidence has shown that physician advice to quit smoking increases smoking cessation rates by as much as 30%. However, evidence has also shown that smoking cessation counseling only occurs in 23-46% of office visits. Handheld-assisted technology devices, such as personal digital assistants (PDA), are increasing in popularity and present a novel way to educate medical students regarding smoking cessation. Prior focus group data demonstrated that medical students thought PDA-based programs would be an interactive way to learn about smoking cessation counseling. The goal of the current pilot study was to evaluate the efficacy and feasibility of training medical students on the 5A model for smoking cessation with a PDA-based program. The participants of the study reported that the PDA-based training provided the student with an interactive “hands on” experience regarding smoking cessation. One participant noted, “The PDA training help me because it was framed as if it were a clinical encounter… it gave prompts of how to word questions and responses to the patient… it was as if we were interacting with a patient… it wasn't just reading an article on the internet”. Overall, the results of this pilot program were favorable and the participants reported that they liked this novel use of technology to facilitate medical education.