A Comprehensive Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence
One of the key components that clinicians and other health care providers need to do to help patients, according to guidelines aimed at providing and supporting effective treatments for tobacco use and dependence, is to encourage the motivation to quit. A routine assessment of tobacco use status should be mandatory for all patients entering a health care system to ensure a patient is willing to attempt quitting. However, these should come after advice and counseling to the patient to quit smoking. Motivational interviewing (MI), is a strategy that involves a direct and patient-centered counseling intervention and has proved to be effective in enhancing future quit attempts for patients (Treating tobacco use and dependence, 2008). The strategy involves four general principles that clinicians employ to engage the patients in talks about tobacco dependency and has proven to be an efficient quitting strategy. The clinician should express empathy, develop discrepancy, roll with resistance, and, support self-efficacy for the patient.
Classified as a chronic disease, Tobacco dependence requires repeated clinical intervention and numerous quitting attempts. Treating this disease is one of the least expensive activities in health care (Rigotti, 2012). One of the best strategies to help a patient quit smoking is to check the patient’s tobacco use status continuously. Clinicians should recommend counseling treatments and medication to every patient who wants to make a quit attempt. Clinicians should also provide practical advice, including problem-solving skills and skill training. At large, health care practitioners should encourage the use of effective medications available for tobacco dependence, such as nicotine gum or inhalers.
The abstinence of tobacco dependence can be beneficial to smokers of any age. Older smokers who quit can reduce their risk of death from a variety of diseases. However, issues affecting such populations such as mobility call for other means of smoking cessations. For this population, the use of proactive telephone counseling appears particularly promising (Kavirajan, 2019).
References
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service. (2008). Treating tobacco use and dependence. https://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/clinicians-providers/guidelines-recommendations/tobacco/clinicians/update/index.html
Rigotti, N. (2012). Strategies to Help a Smoker Who Is Struggling to Quit. JAMA, 308(15), 1. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.13043
Kavirajan, H. (2019). Can relapse prevention interventions help adults who have quit smoking while hospitalized to maintain abstinence?. Cochrane Clinical Answers. https://doi.org/10.1002/cca.2614