Helping hospital patients quit: What the evidence supports and what guidelines recommend

Objective. The study aimed to critically appraise the extent and strength of systematic review evidence for, and guideline recommendations regarding hospital smoking cessation interventions. Methods. Systematic reviews of smoking cessation interventions were identified via an electronic search of the Cochrane Library. Meta-analyses from Cochrane reviews were categorised as those that incorporated only studies of hospital based interventions, and those which incorporated interventions which were not hospital based. Smoking cessation guidelines for hospital health professionals were identified via a search of the World Wide Web. Results. The review found that evidence from meta-analyses restricted to hospital studies was insufficient to evaluate a number of specific intervention strategies and at times conflicted with the findings of meta-analyses without such restrictions. The majority of guidelines recommended the provision of brief advice, counseling, nicotine replacement therapy despite the absence of clear supporting evidence. Conclusions. Further hospital-based research addressing specific cessation strategies is required. Furthermore, smoking cessation guidelines for hospital based health professionals should more specifically reflect evidence from this setting. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.