Basic nursing education has a major impact on the future professional practices of nurses. Nurses must be adequately trained to perform health promotion activities, such as smoking cessation. However, nurses play only a minor role in this field. The objective of this research was to describe the smoking cessation content in basic nursing programmes in Quebec.
A simple descriptive mixed design (quantitative and qualitative) study was conducted among nursing programme administrators in Quebec, using a validated online questionnaire.
On average, the time devoted to smoking cessation was reported to be less than one hour per year, essentially concerning the physiological and pathophysiological factors of tobacco consumption, while nursing professional assessment and counselling in smoking cessation were almost non-existent.
The results confirm the need to increase and improve the time and content devoted to smoking cessation in the basic nursing education curriculum. It is also important to structure basic training courses so to improve knowledge, attitudes, and skills of future nurses in order to influence their role in smoking cessation in their future professional practice.