Assessing use

Research continues to show that health care providers often fail to intervene with all of their patients who smoke. Only half of current smokers report that their providers encourage them to quit and even fewer receive specific counseling.

A number of studies have demonstrated that provider-delivered counseling can be effective for smoking cessation.

Assessing the patient's stage of change is very useful in determining the right type of advice to provide. For example, a precontemplator may not be aware of the dangers of smoking, and would need to learn more about that, whereas a person in the preparation stage might need to learn about how to ease withdrawal symptoms using nicotine replacement.

Health education may be considered successful if it helps to move the individual forward on the continuum of readiness to change. Complete behavioral change may not happen overnight, but persuading someone to reconsider his or her habits and view them in the light of the effect the habits have on their health can eventually promote behavior change.

Counseling should be focused on helping patients progress along the continuum of change. For information on how to counsel patients, please refer to the "Counseling" section.