[Factors associated with medical residents' brief counseling]

Smoking is a public health problem. Physicians have an important role in the fight against smoking, particularly by means of the brief advice they can give. The aim of this work was to study the prevalence of brief advice application by medical residents and to identify factors that may condition its practice.

We conducted a descriptive and analytical study with prospective data collection that included 302 residents practicing in Tunisia who had agreed to respond to an online questionnaire submitted in February and March 2020.

Residents' mean age was 28±2 years and the gender ratio was 0.65. Sixty-four percent of them were non-smokers. During their practice, 94% systematically identified their patients' smoking status, but 61.9% were unfamiliar with the concept of brief advice. Residents' brief advice application rate was 57.6%. In multivariate analysis, the factors impacting brief advice application were: gender (OR=0.321, p=0.0001), familiarity with brief counseling (OR=2.808, p=0.002) and having observed brief advice being given by a senior physician (OR=2.328, p=0.0001).

The rate of brief advice application remains low. On this subject, improved theoretical and practical teaching during medical studies is essential.