title: Current practices and intention to provide alcohol-related health advice in primary dental care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether general dental practitioners (GDPs) currently provide alcohol-related advice (ARA) and to inform the development of an intervention, should one be required.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional postal survey of a random sample of 300 GDPs in Scotland. The questionnaire assessed beliefs derived from psychological models that explain behaviour in terms of beliefs that are amenable to change, and so may inform development of an intervention to encourage the provision of ARA.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixty percent of GDPs responded. Eighty-three percent of participating GDPs (145/175) had not provided ARA to patients in the previous ten working days. Attitude (perceived consequences), control beliefs (perceived difficulty), subjective norm (perceived social pressure), and self-efficacy (confidence) significantly predicted intention to provide ARA. Alcohol-related knowledge or personal alcohol behaviour did not predict intention to provide ARA.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is scope to increase the provision of ARA in primary care dentistry and this study identified predictive beliefs, which could be targeted to encourage this behaviour. The next phase is to develop and test an intervention to encourage GDPs to provide ARA.
authors: Dental Health Services Research Unit, University of Dundee, The Mackenzie Building, Kirsty Semple Way, Dundee, DD2 4BF, UK. s.d.shepherd@dundee.ac.uk
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Shepherd
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Bonnetti
authors: J E
authors: JE
authors: Clarkson
authors: G R
authors: GR
authors: Ogden
authors: L
authors: L
authors: Young
mesh_terms: D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003376:Counseling; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005792:General Practice, Dental; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D019239:Practice Patterns, Dentists'; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018401:Sample Size; D012606:Scotland; D020377:Self Efficacy; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires