Meet Alexander – not yet ready to quit

Meet Alexander, a 32-year-old who owns a successful business. Alexander enjoys smoking and he is not yet interested in giving up. His wife is unhappy about his smoking and makes sure he doesn’t smoke in front of their two small children. 

Alexander has an appointment with his doctor about another health matter. Find out how his doctor uses Very Brief Advice at the end of the consultation to discuss his smoking in this two-minute video.

At the end of the appointment Alexander’s doctor asks him whether he smokes so that it can be recorded in the practice records. This opens up a conversation and while it is clear that Alexander isn’t ready to stop smoking at this time, we find out that his wife disapproves of his smoking in front of their children. This enables his doctor to reinforce the dangers of second-hand smoke and introduce that a combination of support and treatment is available to Alexander when the time is right.

Useful resources about the dangers of second-hand smoke (with links to external sites) are the NCSCT second-hand smoking Very Brief Advice module which covers the importance of making homes and cars smoke-free and the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) 2018 report on Smoking in the home. There have also been various media campaigns highlighting the importance of not smoking in or near the home so it may be worth mentioning these as they may already be familiar to patients. In the UK these campaigns have included ‘Take 7 steps out’ and ‘Secondhand Smoke is Poison’.

Patients may be unaware of the many options available to reduce nicotine cravings and so mentioning treatment here may sow the seed for giving up smoking in the future if patients understand that they don’t have to go ‘cold turkey’.