Dental clinicians and their educators report a lack of self-confidence either in applying or teaching tobacco use prevention and cessation, according to the Oral Health Network on Tobacco Use Prevention and Cessation (OHNTPC).

The organisation's website invites visitors to develop programs to promote tobacco use prevention and cessation for their patients

Additionally, a number of barriers to tobacco use cessation such as underdeveloped professional experience, time constraints for education and lack of financial compensation need to be removed or mitigated, it says.

The organisation says these issues may be solved more efficiently with joint efforts using a network of public health and health professionals of dentistry and dental hygiene.

The Network was developed to support a global collaborative forum to establish and augment national and international expertise in areas including assisting oral health professionals to implement tobacco use prevention and cessation in the daily practice and integrating tobacco use prevention and cessation into dental and dental hygiene education.

In addition, the OHNTPC provides access to valuable resources such as the consensus report of the first European Workshop on Tobacco use Prevention and Cessation for Oral Health Professionals, online education options, news updates and participation in the website community exchange.

The OHNTPC website located at www.tobacco-oralhealth.net is inviting visitors globally to join with colleagues in developing programmes to promote tobacco use prevention and cessation for their patients and public community.