Best Practices for Cessation: When selecting and developing tobacco treatment skills and programs, MDQuit encourages healthcare providers to stay up-to-date on clinical techniques and methods that have the strongest empirical support and can be considered “Best Practices” for tobacco cessation, often addressing both the physical and behavioral components of tobacco use and dependence.
MDQuit has created a video featuring Dr. Marc Fishman of Mountain Manor, who speaks about tobacco pharmacotherapy options. You can view the video here.
Clinical Practice Guidelines: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released a comprehensive Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence--2008 Update for providers. MDQuit considers best practices for cessation to be methods that receive A or B “Strength of Evidence” ratings in the Clinical Practice Guideline (Fiore et al, 2008, pg 77), combinations of these methods, and other treatment methods supported by recent research studies.
Best-evidence Tobacco Cessation Strategies:
- Brief Interventions and the 5 A’s - skills and techniques that should be utilized from the start of the first conversation with a consumer to enhance motivation to change
- Psychosocial Interventions
- Quitlines
- Medications - Pharmacotherapy
- Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT)
Additional Cessation Support:
- Family & Friends - for loved ones of tobacco users.
- Self-Help
- Youth Cessation - programs that have shown evidence of effectiveness in youth populations, some with previous recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Alternative Techniques - a variety of cessation strategies that may show promise, but are not currently recommended by the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Treating Tobacco use and Dependence (Fiore et al., 2008).
