Dentists may be able to help their patients stop smoking by referring them to tobacco-use telephone 'quit lines' according to a pilot study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association (2007; 138: 595–601).

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA, identified the need to conduct a pilot study to evaluate whether the speedier measure of referring patients to tobacco use quit lines was also effective in helping patients stop smoking.

Dentists who intervene with patients to help them stop using tobacco can play a significant role in decreasing tobacco-related illness and death. However, providing support for such patients requires time and resources that oral health care professionals may not always have.

The authors randomly assigned eight general dental practices in Minnesota to provide either brief counselling regarding smoking cessation or brief counselling along with referrals to a tobacco-use quit line for patients who reported that they were currently smoking cigarettes.

Of 82 patients, 60 were referred to the tobacco-use quit line and 22 received only brief counselling. At six months, 25% of the patients in the quit line group and 27.3% of the patients in the brief-counselling group had abstained from tobacco use. Abstinence rates among patients in the quit line group rose if those patients completed more telephone consultations.

The authors cite research indicating that although more than 60% of dentists believe their patients do not expect tobacco-use cessation services from them, about 59% of patients believe that dentists should provide such services.