Factors associated with the provision of anti-smoking advice by general practitioners

The acceptability of advice about smoking in the consultation has recently been questioned. We report a study that explored patients' attitudes to gen eral practitioners' (GPs) anti-smoking advice and the characteristics of pa tients with whom GPs chose to discuss smoking. Patients who recalled the ad vice were generally positive about stopping smoking. This could be explaine d by the observation that GPs were more likely to advise smokers who percei ved their problems to be smoking-related and were more motivated to stop sm oking. The implications of this finding are discussed.