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Smoking cessation - Management
What drug treatment should I prescribe to help someone over 18 years of age to help them stop smoking?
- Encourage people who want to stop smoking to quit abruptly, supported by drug treatment whenever possible.
- For people who are willing and feel able to quit abruptly, reduce the risk of relapse by prescribing nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, or varenicline. The choice of treatment should be made on an individual basis, taking into account:
- The individual's previous experience of smoking cessation drugs and their preference for treatment.
- Contraindications, cautions, and risk of adverse effects.
- For people who are clearly unwilling or unable to quit abruptly, some experts recommend offering NRT to help them to reduce the amount they smoke before quitting. However the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence states that this strategy should only be used as part of a properly designed and conducted research study of people who have repeatedly tried and failed to quit and those who are adamant that they do not want to quit abruptly. This approach is therefore not recommended as part of routine clinical practice.
In depth
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