Kick off Meeting of the European project INSTrUCT

On the 11th and 12th of November 2019, 20 academics and researchers from 7 EU Universities together with members of the Tobacco Control Unit at the Catalan Institute of Oncology (coordinator) held the kick-off meeting of the INSTrUCT project funded by ERASMUS + in Barcelona.

INSTrUCT is an educational and research project aimed at developing an open educational resource addressed at teaching University students from healthcare professions how to treat tobacco dependence. INSTRUCT will develop, implement, evaluate and disseminate an open resource composed of an online course with videos, a virtual simulation area and an implementation guideline for teachers. This resource will be available in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese).  The OER will be first tested with nursing students but it is intended to be used and be easily introduced into the Higher Education curricula of several health science degrees (medicine, pharmacy, etc.).

Tobacco use is a significant public health hazard, responsible for nearly 700.000 annual deaths in Europe. Despite these figures, still 28% of European adults are smokers with the consequent risk of maintaining and even increasing the burden of tobacco-related diseases across the continent. Students from healthcare professions are expected to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to treating tobacco dependence in order to reduce the burden of tobacco related diseases.

The INSTrUCT project is intended to become a solution to teach students from all healthcare Higher Education Schools how to support smokers to quit before graduation, and consequently help them to contribute to tackling the tobacco epidemic in Europe.