Stop smoking advice by physicians: A feasible approach?

To understand the effect of brief stop smoking advice by physicians, we conducted a randomized clinical trial in 258 smokers. After three months, 8.8 per cent of the intervention group and 6.8 per cent of the control group had become nonsmokers. The intervention group also reported significantly more attempts to quit and/or cut down. At follow-up, only 60 per cent recalled receiving a smoking message and only 85 per cent of these perceived it as a message to quit.