Background. Health professionals play an essential role in tobacco control. Our objective was to assess Iranian dental students' attitudes towards tobacco control. Methods. Eight dental schools were randomly selected, and a survey using Global Health Professions Student Survey (GHPSS) instrument was conducted among dental students in 2010 in Iran. The chi-square test served for statistical analyses. Results. Of the participants (325 students, 66% female), about one-fifth (21%) were current tobacco (including cigarettes and waterpipe) users. A clear majority (over 80%) of the students agreed as to the responsibility of health professionals on serving as role models for patients and the public, routinely advising patients using tobacco to quit, and giving patients advice about smoking cessation. Over 75% believed that cigarette-smoking health professionals are less likely to advise their patients to stop smoking. Current tobacco users were significantly less likely to agree with these beliefs ( ). Conclusion. Future oral health professionals have generally positive attitudes towards tobacco control. However, their own current tobacco use has a significant negative impact on these attitudes, an impact which ought to be taken into account in tobacco control. 1. Introduction Globally, one of the greatest health challenges of today is the tobacco epidemic. Worldwide, the number who dies from tobacco-related diseases each year is higher than the number of victims of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS added together [1]. In developing countries, the situation is even worse than in today’s developed countries [2]. In Iran, with its population of about 75 million, tobacco-related diseases kill more than 75,000 people per year [3]. Economically, the expenses associated with tobacco, that is, treatment of tobacco-related diseases together with tobacco production and import, constitute a considerable cost for society. Furthermore, individuals and families have high expenditures from smoking [4, 5]. Health professionals’ involvement in the tobacco epidemic is an essential and effective way of dealing with it [6]. Even a brief advice from health professionals to smoking patients can significantly increase the quit rate [7–9]. One way to make health professionals’ involvement even more effective in tackling tobacco use is a multiprofessional approach which has been advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO) [10, 11]. Physicians usually undertake more cessation counseling than do the other health professionals [12], but other groups of health professionals can be
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