Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Provider Education When Used Alone

Provider education to encourage tobacco use cessation involves giving information about tobacco and tobacco use cessation to providers to increase their knowledge and to change their attitudes and practices. Techniques by which information is delivered include lectures, written materials, videos, and continuing medical education seminars. Provider populations include physicians, nurses, physician assistants, healthcare students, and other office staff. Provider education efforts are frequently combined with other interventions, such as provider reminders and patient education efforts.

Summary of Task Force Recommendations & Findings

The Community Preventive Services Task Force finds insufficient evidence to assess the effectiveness of provider education alone because of inconsistent results in increasing provider advice to quit, and an insufficient number of studies measuring differences in client cessation.

Task Force Finding

Results from the Systematic Reviews

Sixteen studies qualified for the review.

• Provider determination of client smoking status: median increase of 8 percentage points (range: 1.0 to 35.0 percentage points; 5 studies)
• Provider delivery of advice to quit smoking: median increase of 2.2 percentage points (range: -5.0 to 73.0 percentage points; 10 studies). However, 4 of these 10 studies observed either no effect or a negative effect on provider delivery of advice to quit.
• The evaluated techniques for educating providers included day-long seminars, lectures for practitioners, lectures for resident physicians, lectures and office visits or contacts, small-group tutorial sessions, mock interviews with feedback, and education materials.

Find a Research-tested Intervention Program (RTIP) about the use of provider education to increase tobacco use cessation (What is an RTIP?).

These findings were based on a systematic review of all available studies, conducted on behalf of the Task Force by a team of specialists in systematic review methods, and in research, practice and policy related to the topic of tobacco use.

Economic Review

An economic review of this intervention was not conducted because the Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine its effectiveness.

Supporting Materials

• Research gaps
• Included studies

Publications

Hopkins DP, Briss PA, Ricard CJ. Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to reduce tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. [PDF - 6.38MB] Am J Prev Med 2001;20(2S):16–66.

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations regarding interventions to reduce tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. [PDF - 1.46KB] Am J Prev Med 2001;20(2S):10–5.

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Tobacco. [PDF - 3.63KB] In : Zaza S, Briss PA, Harris KW, eds. The Guide to Community Preventive Services: What Works to Promote Health? Atlanta (GA): Oxford University Press;2005:3-79.

More Community Guide publications about Tobacco Use

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Sample Citation

The content of publications of the Guide to Community Preventive Services is in the public domain. Citation as to source, however, is appreciated. Sample citation: Guide to Community Preventive Services. Increasing tobacco use cessation: provider education. Last updated: www.thecommunityguide.org/tobacco/cessation/providereducation.html. Last updated: MM/DD/YYYY.

Review completed: February 2000