Adolescent Care Providers: If you have an upcoming appointment with an adolescent who vapes or smokes, here’s your site to quickly brush up on how to treat tobacco use.
A.C.T. to Promote Adolescent Cessation
- Ask: Screen for tobacco use with all adolescents, during every clinical encounter.
- Counsel: Advise all adolescents who use tobacco to quit and have them set a quit date within two weeks.
- Treat: Have your patient:
- Visit WiQuitLine.org
- Text “VAPEFREE” to 873373
- Consider prescribing the nicotine patch to ease cravings.
Deeper Dive - More Information
Here’s what the evidence says:
- American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Youth Tobacco Cessation: Considerations for Clinicians. This brief, free, practical guide is designed to support pediatric health clinicians in screening patients for tobacco use and providing behavioral and pharmacological support to help adolescents quit smoking, vaping or chewing tobacco.
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- The resource uses an easy, 3-step model, “Ask-Counsel-Treat (ACT),” to guide clinical interactions around cessation.
- AAP Youth Tobacco Cessation Case Studies
- Youth Tobacco Cessation Progressive Web App (PWA). This PWA is intended to assist health personnel in supporting youth tobacco cessation by delivering the Ask-Counsel-Treat model in a tool designed for use within a clinical encounter. Designed for multi-system use, the PWA can be utilized on a computer, tablet or offline mobile app. To use it, click here.
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- Check out the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendations on helping adolescents quit tobacco use, or that of the American College of Preventive Medicine
- Visit UW-CTRI’s page designed for adolescents.