Effective Intervention for Smoking Cessation Practical guidance for medical facilities including smoking cessation clinics

摘要

The essential of tobacco use is nicotine dependence. It is important to understand that habitual smoking is a chronic dependency that is liable to relapse but is amenable to repeated treatment, and to incorporate the treatment of this dependency into the routine healthcare activities. The efficacy of therapeutic programs that deal with smoking cessation on the basis of approaches using behavioral science and pharmacology has been established, and it is apparent that the cost-effectiveness of such treatment is extremely high among the various healthcare programs available. This paper introduces a therapeutic approach (the "5 A's") that can be implemented within a short period of time at outpatient clinics and discusses the use of nicotine replacement therapy.