The Dentist’s Role in Smoking Cessation Management. Part 2

What is it about?

By utilizing the ‘stages of change’ approach to smoking cessation an individual’s willingness to quit smoking can be ascertained, with provision of knowledge on potential interventions empowering patients to make their own decisions on cessation modalities. Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) can reduce physical cravings, pharmacotherapies can reduce the desire to smoke, stop smoking services can provide smokers with interpersonal support and electronic cigarettes are increasing in popularity but cannot be recommended as a completely safe way of delivering nicotine. Interpersonal support in combination with NRT and/or ​pharmacotherapy is the safest and most successful method of smoking cessation. The authors are developing an online resource to assist with smoking cessation advice. It is available at http://www.smokingcessationtraining.com/.

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Why is it important?

For a patient who is amenable to brief cessation advice, the stages of change model allow the dentist to adapt brief advice to the patient’s current circumstances. By improving knowledge of smoking cessation modalities, the dentist can answer any simple questions the patient may have, signposting them towards specialist cessation centres when appropriate.