Healthcare Providers
You play an important role in helping your patient quit smoking.
Quitting smoking is one of the best things a person can do to improve their health.
Counselling someone is widely recognized as good clinical practice. Even a brief intervention by a healthcare provider like you has been shown to make a significant difference in helping a person to quit.
You need to get 3 messages across to your patients:
- It’s not their fault that they smoke.
- Quitting may be the hardest thing they will ever have to do.
- There is help that will increase their chances of being successful.
For busy healthcare providers, use the 3 As: Ask, Advise, Act. Do these 3 things without judgment:
Ask: Have you used any form of tobacco or vaping product in the last 6 months?
Advise: The best thing for your health is to stop smoking. Ask: How can I help?
Act: Offer a referral to Tobacco Free Nova Scotia.
The Tobacco Free Nova Scotia program is your partner in this process:
- You ask your patients about their tobacco use.
- You advise them to quit.
- We can assess, assist and arrange support for them to quit smoking.
To learn more about this approach, see CAN-ADAPTT’s Canadian Smoking Cessation Clinical Practice Guideline.
Our referral program makes it easy for you to refer your patients to us. After you send the referral, a trained counsellor will call your patient within 3 business days. They help your patient make a quit plan and give them the support they need to follow it. Our counsellors have the skills and experience to help your patient quit using tobacco no matter what kind of product they use. They can also help them to quit vaping.
Our services include:
See About us to find out more about our program.
Surgery
Studies show that stopping smoking before surgery improves your patient’s surgical outcomes in 2 ways: It reduces the risk of complications and improves recovery.
Evidence suggests that the following life events lead people to want to quit smoking:
- hospitalization
- surgery
- lung cancer screening
People facing these life events are more likely to try to quit smoking either on their own or with a quit-smoking aid. That’s why it’s a good idea to talk to a patient about smoking BEFORE their surgery AND in connection to their surgery. This can increase their chances of success and improve their surgical outcomes.
Cancer Diagnosis
Patients who use tobacco during cancer treatment can have poorer treatment-related outcomes. These are some of the benefits those who quit may experience:
- fewer complications related to their disease or treatment
- more effective cancer treatments
- better chance of survival
- reduced risk of the cancer coming back
- reduced risk of developing secondary cancers.
Smoking and mental illness
At least half of people with mental illness or addiction are also addicted to nicotine. They also smoke more cigarettes a day. This has led to some myths around smoking and mental illness:
Myth: People with mental illness cannot quit smoking OR do not want to quit.
Fact: Like other smokers, people with mental illness care about smoking harming their health. They want information on how to quit and where to get help.
Myth: Quitting smoking will harm mental illness recovery or treatment plans.
Fact: Studies show that quitting smoking does NOT make psychiatric symptoms worse. Nor does it make it harder for people to recover. In fact, many with mental illness do well after quitting.
Myth: Smoking can be useful for people with mental illness. Self-medicating with nicotine lessens the symptoms of their mental illness.
Fact: Smoking has harmful effects on people with schizophrenia who smoke:
- They have more psychiatric symptoms.
- They need higher medication doses.
- They need more hospital stays.
Finally, the chemicals in cigarette smoke make some psychotropic medicines less effective.
Myth: Quitting smoking will have a negative effect on treatment for other addictions.
Fact: People who take part in quit-smoking programs while in treatment for other substance abuse issues are 25 percent more likely to abstain from alcohol and other drugs in the long term. Their outcome is likely worse if they continue smoking.
People being treated for mental illnesses need clinical supervision when they quit or reduce smoking.
Adolescent brain development and smoking
Smoking can affect how the brain works, particularly the prefrontal cortex. This is an area of the brain that continues to develop through adolescence. Because of this, teens who smoke may risk serious and lasting harm to their brains.
Sex-specific risks
Research supports a quit-smoking approach specific to people with female reproductive organs. These people often have experiences with smoking that are influenced by one or more of these factors:
- mental illness
- substance use
- stress
- lack of support
- identity and stigma, particularly for pregnant and breastfeeding people
Indigenous peoples and smoking
Like many Canadians, Indigenous Peoples in Canada use commercial tobacco products:
- cigarettes
- chewing tobacco
- vaping products
These products do not have the same sacred and spiritual meaning as the traditional use of tobacco.
It is possible to help your First Nations, Inuit, or Métis patient to quit and respect their traditional tobacco use. It is important that your care be culturally safe and competent regarding Indigenous tobacco use. Your patients may have more success if you direct them to culturally-specific programs.
To see more FACT SHEETS on issues related to quit smoking, go to CAN-ADAPTT tools and resources for healthcare providers and clinicians.
Training
Do you want to learn more about how you can help your patient to stop smoking? The Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) offers Canada’s only internationally accredited program in smoking cessation counselling.
The TEACH program offers online and in-person workshops and certificate programs that will give you the knowledge and confidence you need to support your patients.
Information sources: CAN-ADAPTT, JAMA, quitnow.ca