Educating Providers on Proactive Smoking Cessation Treatments in Primary Care

Background

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Despite available treatments, quitting rates are low without proper support.

Problem

In a primary care setting, proactive smoking cessation interventions were not routinely provided.

Methods

A quality improvement project using quasi-experimental design focused on educating providers and actively engaging smoking patients.

Results

Post-intervention, there was a significant increase in the percentage of patients offered smoking cessation treatments (38.5% to 84.6%, P = .016). However, there was no significant change in treatment acceptance rates.

Conclusion

Educating providers increased treatment offers. Further research is needed to understand barriers to treatment acceptance.