Bmc Fam Pract
-
United Kingdom (UK) national guidelines recommend that all pregnant women who smoke should be advised to quit at every available opportunity, and brief cessation advice is an efficient and cost-effective means to increase quit rates. The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) implemented in 2004 requires general practitioners to document their delivery of smoking cessation advice in patient records. However, no specific targets have been set in QOF for the recording of this advice in pregnant women. We used a large electronic primary care database from the UK to quantify the pregnancies in which women who smoked were recorded to have been given smoking cessation advice, and the associated maternal characteristics. ⋯ Recorded delivery of smoking cessation advice for pregnant smokers in primary care has increased with some fluctuation over the years, especially after the implementation of the QOF, and varies with maternal characteristics.