Assessing the Effectiveness of a Pharmacist-delivered Smoking Cessation Program in the State of Qatar

"The first session will be time-intensive taking around 30 minutes. In this session, the study pharmacist will facilitate the participant's preparation to quit. The participant will select a quit date within the next 2-4 weeks. The pharmacist will discuss with the participant the benefits of smoking cessation and will provide him or her with tailored behavioral and lifestyle strategies.~To prevent nicotine withdrawal symptoms, the participant will be offered nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) The first follow-up session will be scheduled after 1 week of the participant's quit day and will take around 20 minutes. In this session, the pharmacist will determine the participant's smoking status and assess the NRT tolerability.~• If the participant fails to quit smoking, the pharmacist will carefully review the participant's experience during the attempt to quit and will work through the identified problems"

Participants in the control group will receive 5-10 minutes of unstructured brief smoking cessation advice by the pharmacist. In addition they will be provided with educational materials about smoking cessation and will be offered nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).