Addressing Smoking in Musculoskeletal Specialty Care

Physicians who advise patients to quit smoking substantially improve cessation rates, but cessation counseling is currently underperformed.

Counseling, pharmacotherapy, and additional interventions can improve the chance of successful smoking cessation. Most patients require multiple attempts at quitting to be successful.

A list of referral contacts and resources should be developed and routinely offered to these patients. The national Quitline (1-800-QUIT-NOW) provides free access to trained counselors and "quit coaches" for each state program in the United States.

Government and private insurance plans in the United States are required (in most cases) to cover the cost of 2 quitting attempts per year including counseling referrals and medications.

Several biopsychosocial factors that affect orthopaedic outcomes (weight, anxiety, depression, etc.) are also relevant to smoking cessation; management of these factors is thus potentially aggregately advantageous.