Healthcare Providers Can Help to Double, Triple or Quadruple Quit Rates

Healthcare providers play a powerful role in ensuring all patients who use tobacco get help to quit. Effective treatments exist that can produce long-term or permanent abstinence:

When a physician intervenes, abstinence rates can double. Nurses can have a big impact, too. For tools and guidelines, click here. When smokers use one of the six FDA-approved medications, long-term abstinence rates can triple. Smokers who use the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line quit smoking at a rate that’s as high as four times the rate of those who quit cold turkey, according to an independent survey.

Dr. June Lewandoski of Mile Bluff Clinic speaks to a smoker about quitting.

Even greater success can result from the combined use of pharmacotherapy and counseling. Click here for a pharmacotherapy treatment chart. Treatments, including counseling, have been shown to be both clinically effective and cost-effective, relative to other medical and disease prevention interventions.