British physicians looking for effective techniques to help their patients stop smoking now have the United Kingdom's first evidence-based recommendations to guide them.
Endorsed by more than 20 professional organizations, the recommendations are based on data from the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Review Group in the United Kingdom and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in the United States. The new guidelines elaborate on the essential features of effective individual smoking cessation advice: ask patients about smoking at every opportunity, advise all smokers to stop, assist the smoker in stopping, and arrange for follow-up. The routine recommendation of nicotine replacement therapy is encouraged.
The guidelines were published in December 1998 in Thorax and summarized in the January 16 issue of BMJ. The summary noted that smoking causes more than 120,000 deaths annually in the United Kingdom and is the largest single preventable cause of death and . . . [Full Text of this Article]
