Providers: Best Ways to Help Adolescents Quit Vaping

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.

Here’s what the evidence says:

1. 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.
   • • The resource uses an easy, 3-step model, “Ask-Counsel-Treat (ACT),” to guide clinical interactions around cessation.
     • AAP Youth Tobacco Cessation Case Studies
2. 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
3. Visit UW-CTRI’s page designed for adolescents.