Effective smoking cessation strategies in primary care

The goal of this report is to provide the evidence and recommendations required for effective cessation interventions to be carried out in primary care settings, which ultimately increases the number of smokers receiving help. [...] The European Medicines Agency (12) identified a number of limitations to this meta-analysis: there was a low number of events seen, the types of events counted, the greater drop-out rates of placebo users, and lack of information regarding the timing of events. [...] An evidence-based framework to use is the five As: • Ask patients about smoking status; • Advise patients about the health risk of tobacco use and to quit; • Assess patients’ readiness to quit; • Assist patients who are ready to quit; • Arrange follow-up. [...] The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the feasibility and generalizability of this report, guided by the applicability and transferability tool from the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools.