pharmacists planning service, inc. 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality
2101 East Jefferson Street
Rockville MD 20852

Dear Pharmacist:

Smokers need frontline clinicians, such as yourself. to provide counseling to quit. But we realize that you also need the proper tools to help them. To support your efforts, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Pharmacy Council on Tobacco Dependence (PCTD), is pleased to provide you with copies of an easy-to-use flyer. This one-pager is aimed at key audiences who may be some of your most frequent customers: first time quitters, those who've tried to quit before, and pregnant women and their family members who smoke. It is our hope that you will display the flyer, use it in discussion with your customers, and include it as a pharmacy give-away.

This flyer is apart of an AHRQ Two-Three Quit Campaign, based on information found in the 1996 AHRQ-sponsored Smoking Cessation Practice Guideline and the 1998 PHS Clinician's Handbook of Preventive Services. The Guideline, released in 1996, was the first time the research addressing the assessment and treatment of tobacco dependence, nicotine addiction, and clinical practice had been analyzed systematically. The Guideline found that health care providers can make a difference in quit rates. How? First, identify smokers by asking two important questions -- Do You Smoke? and Do You Want To Quit? -- and then provide brief counseling of three minutes or less. While there are many more elements to cessation than simply asking these questions, this is a very important first step to help smokers to quit successfully.

You can make additional copies, or reorder this free material by contacting the Pharmacy Council on Tobacco Dependence at (415) 479-8628, by e-mail at ppsi@aol.com. You can also contact AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse at 800-358-9295, P.O. Box 8547, Silver Spring, MD 20907-8547, by e-mail at info@ahrq.gov, or download the flyers from our website at  http://www.ahrq.gov/consumer/index.html#smoking. Stay tuned to this site this summer, when the Public Health Service releases the Update to the 1996 Smoking Cessation Clinical Practice Guideline. this Update will include new research that will address improving the quality of tobacco dependence treatment.

We look forward to working with you on these tobacco cessation efforts.

Sincerely,

P.S. You can obtain a copy of this flyer directly from this website as follows. You can print it on your own printer. However, in order to do so, you will need a copy of Acrobat Reader. If you do not have a copy of this Acrobat Reader on your computer you can download it from the internet by clicking here. Click on the word flyer below. Acrobat Reader will automatically come up and display a copy of the flyer that is ready to print. Click on the "printer" icon in the Acrobat Reader panel. The flyer will automatically print on your printer. When print is complete, simply click the "BACK" button on your browser. To display the flyer for printing click on the word flyer.