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Definitely not. The Best Practice Guideline ‘Integrating Smoking Cessation into Daily Nursing Practice’ was developed for every nurse, regardless of their area of practice or specialty. The guideline is a resource to enable every nurse to gain the knowledge and develop their skills in assessing and assisting tobacco users to reduce their risk of harm from exposure to tobacco products.

Indeed the acute care nurse will have opportunities to apply the guideline. If the patient’s smoking status is treated as a vital sign, the patient who smokes will frequently have a discussion regarding his smoking status with the nurse assigned him. In the acute care setting the nurse often can connect the patient’s illness experience to his smoking which may motivate him to change his future smoking behaviour.

In the community, as an occupational nurse, family practice nurse or nurse practitioner, the patients are generally well known to the nurse. Here opportunity exists to ask the patient if they are any closer to thinking about quitting smoking each time they come to the office for any type of primary health care. Time availability will vary as to whether minimal or intensive counseling can be offered. Research shows that both are effective. If the patient is seeing another health care provider during the visit, sharing the smoker’s stage of change with them so they can reinforce the plan will enhance the patient’s readiness to change. By providing resources, showing genuine concern and offering follow up, the patient may become closer to setting a stop date and arranging an appointment specifically for smoking cessation counseling.

Also in the community, nurses in home care, either as CCAC case managers or agency service providers, are in excellent positions to ask, advise, assist and arrange while doing their assessments and interventions. Providing care in a patient’s home gives an invaluable appraisal of the patient’s living circumstances which may reveal factors that may be affecting the patients’ ability to consider stopping tobacco use or provide ideas to promote it.