The family physician and nicotine dependence: A golden opportunity to intervene in the patient's quality of life

Abstract

Today three quarters of pathologies are justified, directly or indirectly, by human behaviors. Health professionals, for fiduciary duty, are responsible for intervening in the natural history of disease. However, contrary to what people think, its contribution to the final outcome is a minority. Although very important, it is still a minority. Some data seem certain - there is a growing demand from patients about the quality of health care, increasing the citizen pays to not be sick and is notorious for its greater autonomy to treat themselves, requiring even give an opinion as to Your health care plan. The family physician still has enough power among their patients - is it possible that they are professionals with a greater potential for influence. It is in this context that emphasizes the possible role of the family physician in the prevention and treatment of tobacco dependence. Smoking, along with AIDS, is currently the most serious public health problem that our society faces. The family doctor is the current organizational context the key element to control the tobacco epidemic in Portugal. If properly trained and with a workplace facilitator can multiply by eight the rate of 3% which is the usual rate of smoking cessation among smokers who do not seek support. Working behavior in relation to tobacco smoking in patients and in non-smokers is now a professional and ethical imperative. Help them adopt a healthy lifestyle, enhancing protective factors of individual and collective health is a whole new paradigm in medicine. It presents the situation as Portuguese and European tobacco consumption and the characteristics and attitudes of smokers. Are proposed three levels of medical intervention in the prevention and tobacco control. A brief intervention in applying the method of FGM "5As" is discussed. We discuss the roles of the health center and hospital in tobacco control and finally make some recommendations on tobacco and health.