Learning Objectives: Understand that there are clinical practice gaps that still need to be overcome, when it comes to advising patients about smoking cessation.
Abstract:
Problem/Objective: Smokers report that they would be more likely to stop smoking if a doctor advised them to quit. The AHRQ Guidelines report that rates of successful quitting are increased by up to 30% with as little as a 3 minute intervention.
Methods: Data from 1548 adults were collected from a random-digit dialed telephone survey about tobacco-use, which was conducted in Erie and Niagara Counties in New York State. Data were restricted to respondents who were current or recent former smokers and who had indicated that they had visited a doctor in the last year. Data were weighted to adjust for variable probabilities of inclusion in the sample and for the over-sampling of current smokers. Results were used with census information, to obtain population estimates.
Results: 84% of smokers or recent former smokers had visited a physician in the last year and approximately 62% indicated that they were asked if they smoked. There were 33% who said their physician spent zero time talking with them about their smoking, which translates into about 47,000 smokers in the two-county sample. Although two-thirds of respondents indicated that some time was devoted to this; the median was only 2 minutes. Surprisingly, 60% (~85,000) indicated that their physician gave little or no effort to help them stop smoking – although this did not correlate with differential quit patterns with this cross-sectional data. Other results will be presented.
Conclusions: Physicians play an important role in helping their patients stop smoking. Results indicate there are areas that need improvement.
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