Tracking dental patient tobacco use and intervention in the academic clinical setting

The purpose of this study was to illustrate one method of tracking patients' tobacco use and monitoring cessation interventions with electronic dental records in an academic dental setting. Records from 465 tobacco users were analyzed to assess patients' tobacco use and providers' intervention techniques. The results indicate that 75 percent of the patients whose records were analyzed had used tobacco for more than ten years and the cold turkey approach was the most common cessation method. Ninety-seven percent of the patients whose records were analyzed used cigarettes. The most common pharmacotherapy recommended in combination with counseling for smoking cessation was the nicotine patch, followed by nicotine gum, varenicline (Chantix), the nicotine lozenge, bupropion SR (Zyban), and the nicotine oral inhaler. Incorporating tobacco use questions into the electronic dental record can ensure that tobacco use and intervention techniques are addressed and documented in dental records. Electronic dental records provide an opportunity to collect data related to tobacco use and intervention techniques for purposes of further evaluation and research.