Brief Advice for Tobacco Cessation in Primary Care: A Twelve-Month Follow-Up
Department of Community Medicine, Rural Health Training Centre, West Bengal, India
Corresponding Author: Islam R, Doctus Journal of Public Health.
Abstract
Brief advice is the most scalable tobacco cessation intervention available to primary care, and its real-world effect in Indian settings is not well described. We followed 612 tobacco users offered structured brief advice at a routine consultation, with biochemically verified abstinence assessed at twelve months. Verified abstinence was 8.7%, against 3.1% in a contemporaneous comparison group receiving usual care. Effect was larger among cigarette smokers than smokeless tobacco users, and among those who had made a previous quit attempt. Adding a single scheduled follow-up call more than doubled the effect, at a cost well below any pharmacological alternative.
Keywords
Tobacco Cessation; Brief Advice; Primary Care; Smokeless Tobacco; Follow-Up Call; Abstinence
How to Cite
Islam R and Dutta N. “Brief Advice for Tobacco Cessation in Primary Care: A Twelve-Month Follow-Up”. Doctus Journal of Public Health 2.1 (2026): 15-28.
Copyright and Licence
© 2026 Islam R. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.