Assist your patients to quit
Assisting patients to quit can take as little as three
minutes. For the patient willing to make a quit attempt, use
counseling
and pharmacotherapy to help him
or her quit. Use the fax referral form to
connect patients with personalized quit coaching from QuitlineNC: Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
Together with the patient, develop a STAR quit plan:
- Set a quit date -- ideally, the quit
date should be within two weeks.
- Tell family, friends, and co-workers
about quitting and request understanding and support.
- Anticipate challenges to planned quit
attempt, particularly during the critical first few
weeks. These include nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
- Remove tobacco products from the
environment. Prior to quitting, avoid smoking in places
where you spend a lot of time (e.g., work, home, car).
Provide practical counseling:
- Total abstinence is essential. "Not even a single puff
after the quit date."
- Anticipate triggers or challenges in upcoming attempt.
Discuss challenges/triggers and how the patient will
successfully overcome them.
- Since alcohol can cause relapse, the patient should
consider limiting/abstaining from alcohol while
quitting.
- Quitting is more difficult when someone else in the
household is smoking. Patients should encourage
housemates to quit with them or not smoke in their
presence.
Assisting Patients Not Ready to Quit
The
"5Rs," Relevance, Risks, Rewards, Roadblocks, and
Repetition, are designed to motivate tobacco users who are
unwilling to quit at this time. There are several reasons
why tobacco users may be unwilling to quit: misinformation,
concern about the effects of quitting, or demoralization
because of previous unsuccessful quit attempts. Therefore,
after asking about tobacco use, advising the tobacco user to
quit, and assessing the willingness to quit, it is important
to provide the "5Rs"
motivational intervention.
Tools
to help ASSIST patients quit tobacco use
