A feasibility trial of two vaping education interventions for oral health professionals in New Zealand

Two educational interventions are designed to improve oral health professionals’ understanding of vaping, including its role in smoking cessation, potential oral health effects, and available cessation support services. Participating OHPs will be randomised (1:1) to receive one of the two vaping education interventions. • The arm 1: intervention group will receive a pre-recorded 60-minute education intervention (a video lecture) delivered online, plus an electronic copy of NZ’s “Guidance for Health Workers in Aotearoa New Zealand on supporting people to stop vaping and using vaping to stop smoking' to read. The approximate length of guidance document is 70 pages. • The arm 2: comparator group will receive an electronic copy of the document “Guidance for Health Workers in Aotearoa New Zealand on supporting people to stop vaping and using vaping to stop smoking' to read. The approximate length of guidance document is 70 pages Both the interventions contain the same core content but differ in delivery format. The guidance document is a freely accessible resource available from New Zealand government website for all healthcare professionals whereas the prerecorded intervention is a new intervention developed by the research team to educate and train oral health professionals specially. The educational interventions will be delivered by an overseas trained dentist and a public health professional Abeeha Syeda. Abeeha is a PhD candidate at the university of Auckland, conducting research on vaping, vaping oral health effects and the role of oral health professionals in supporting patients with vaping cessation. She also experienced in health professional education and training delivery. The intervention content has been developed with input from public health experts with expertise in tobacco control and smoking cessation and has been reviewed for accuracy and relevance. The content has also been informed by professional standards and guidance relevant to oral health practice in New Zealand. The individual participants can access the prerecorded single session of sixty minutes long intervention online to complete at their own convenience and time through online platform. Participants will be contacted first by email, if they are not responsive another reminder email and a text message will be sent after a week. If the participants are unresponsive the second time, they will be reminded by a phone call to complete the survey. If the participants did not respond by the end of second week, they will be considered lost to follow up. Adherence to the intervention will be monitored through the online study platform REDCap where feasible. Participants in both groups will self-report, reminder emails, text messages, and follow-up phone calls will be used to encourage intervention and survey completion. Participants who do not complete the follow-up assessment within two weeks will be considered lost to follow-up.