title: Smoking cessation interventions from health care providers before and after the national smoke-free law in France.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Smoking cessation advice from health care providers (HCP) is well-known to be associated with increased quitting. This study sought to understand the extent to which smokers in France who visited a HCP around the time of the implementation of the national ban on smoking received encouragement to quit from a HCP and what kinds of intervention were provided. HCP may have a unique opportunity during the implementation phase of smoke-free laws to address their patients' smoking behaviours to increase the likelihood of success at a time when smokers' readiness and interest in quitting may be higher.
  
  
  METHODS
  Telephone interviews were conducted among adult smokers (n = 1067) before and after the two-phase (2007 and 2008) national ban on indoor smoking as part of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) France Survey. In the survey, smokers were asked whether they had visited a HCP in the past 6 months and, if so, whether they had received cessation encouragement, and/or other interventions to support quitting such as prescriptions for stop-smoking medication.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most smokers (61%) reported visiting a HCP in the 6 months prior to the first phase of the national smoke-free ban, and 58% after the time of the hospitality ban. Of these, most reported they did not receive any assistance from a HCP before (54%) or after (64%) the smoke-free law. Among those who reported an intervention, the most common were only encouragement to quit (58% in Wave 1 and 49% in Wave 2), or receiving both encouragement and a pamphlet (31% in both Wave 1 and 2). The combination of prescriptions for stop-smoking medicine and encouragement to quit increased from 8% in 2007 to 22% in 2008. The smokers who received an intervention were more likely (OR 1.9, 95% CI: 1.2-2.9) to report that they were thinking about quitting.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrates that HCP in France are well positioned to provide smoking cessation encouragement and other interventions to a majority of smokers and thus the importance of taking measures to increase their involvement, particularly when population-level tobacco control policies, such as smoke-free laws, are being implemented.
authors.affiliation: Propel Centre for Population Health Impact, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. RDKennedy@uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: Ryan David
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Ilan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Behm
authors.forename: Lorraine
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.forename: Mary E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Geoffrey T
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Fong
authors.forename: Romain
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guignard
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Beck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006282:Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult