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BACKGROUND:The efficacy of smoking cessation interventions for hospital patients has been well described, but we know little regarding implementation and outcomes of real‐world programs.OBJECTIVE:To describe the services provided and outcomes of an academic medical center‐based tobacco treatment service (UKanQuit) located in the Midwestern United States.METHOD:This is a descriptive observational study. Both quantitative and qualitative data of all patients treated by UKanQuit over a 1‐year period were analyzed.RESULTS:Among 513 patients served, average interest in quitting was 7.9, standard deviation (SD) 2.9 on a scale of 0 to 10. More than 1 in 4 had been given an in‐hospital medication to ameliorate withdrawal prior to seeing a counselor. Counselors recommended medication changes for 1 in 3 patients, helped 73% set a goal for quitting or reducing tobacco use, and fax referred 56% to quitlines. Six‐month follow‐up (response rate, 46%) found a 7‐day abstinence rate of 32% among respondents for an intent‐to‐treat abstinence rate of 15%. Post‐discharge, 74% made at least one serious quit attempt, 34% had used a quit smoking medication, but only 5% of those referred to the quitline reported using it.CONCLUSIONS:In a hospital setting, interest in quitting is high among smokers who requested to see a tobacco counselor but administration of inpatient medications remains low. Many smokers are making unassisted quit attempts post‐discharge because utilization of cessation medications and quitline counseling were low. Fax‐referral to quitline may not, on its own, fulfill guideline recommendations for post‐discharge follow‐up. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2010;. © 2010 Society of Hospital Medicine.

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Normative data from 203 community-dwelling older Australian adults are presented in relation to performance on the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. Age and years of education were identified as significantly impacting on performance. Therefore, data are presented for three separate age groups (60 -69 years; 70 -79 years; 80 -89 years) and two different lengths of education groups. Comparison between the performance of the Australian sample and an available U.S. sample indicates a generally comparable profile of performance on the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test.

People with cognitive impairment are often unable to inform others of their pain. Nurses need to be able to assess pain in cognitively impaired adults so that appropriate pain management strategies can be implemented. Evidence suggests that certain verbal, facial and behavioural signs may be indicative of pain. This article describes the process undertaken in developing a specific tool to facilitate pain assessment. The tool was developed after extensive analysis of pain research literature, input from experienced nurses and critical review by a panel of experts in dementia care. The research study will be published in next week's Nursing Standard.