Anti-smoking advice from general practitioners: is a population-based approach to advice-giving feasible?
General practitioners' (GPs') advice against smoking has a small, beneficial effect on patients' smoking. Consequently, GPs have been urged to adopt a population-based approach to advice-giving that involves discussing smoking repeatedly with the maximum possible number of smokers. This discussion paper assesses how far GPs' current clinical practice is from a population-based approach to advice-giving and finds that GPs prefer a problem-orientated approach to advising those who present with smoking-related problems. Discussion focuses on the feasibility of suggesting that GPs adopt a population-based approach instead.
Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Leicester, Leicester General Hospital.
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Coleman
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Wilson
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D003376:Counseling; D005194:Family Practice / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*; D006113:United Kingdom