Opportunistic screening in the emergency department

Smoking cessation is currently topical with recent government announcements regarding restricting the sale of disposable vapes and a consultation on raising the legal age of buying tobacco from 18 years, so that anyone born after a certain year will never be able to buy cigarettes legally. This edition of the EMJ contains a randomised controlled multicentre trial of smoking cessation initiated in the emergency department (ED).1 The intervention group received brief smoking cessation advice as well as provision of an e-cigarette starter kit and referral to the local stop smoking services, while the control group received advice on how to self-refer to the local stop smoking service. The 6-month follow-up results showed a statistically significant greater chance of self-reported abstinence from smoking for the previous 7 days in the intervention group compared with the control group. The intervention was delivered by dedicated smoking cessation advisors based in the...
Source: Emergency Medicine Journal - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research