Patient interview

How to take a smoking and vaping history

Other platforms explain it with text and video. In VMS you practice it on the patient.

MD / DOPANursing (NCLEX)
Practice it in VR with Blocky

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease. Measure it and offer help at every visit.

Step by step

  1. Ask every patient

    Cigarettes, cigars, vapes, chewing tobacco, cannabis. [1]

  2. Amount

    How many per day and for how many years. [2]

  3. Pack-years

    Packs per day times years smoked. 20 cigarettes = 1 pack. [2]

  4. Dependence

    Time to first cigarette after waking (within 30 minutes means high dependence). [2]

  5. Quit attempts

    Past attempts, what helped, what made them start again. [3]

  6. Readiness

    Do they want to quit? Offer help and medicines. [3]

  7. Secondhand smoke

    Children or others at home exposed. [2]

Common errors

Practice it in VMS

In VMS you do this on the patient, not on paper: every step goes on the checklist with a score, and in Teach mode Blocky tells you what comes next.

VMS cases that train this skill

30 VMS cases train this skill: open the case library

Sources

  1. AAMC Core Entrustable Professional Activities (Core EPAs)
  2. NCCPA PANCE Content Blueprint
  3. AHRQ Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit (Teach-Back)
  4. NBOME COMLEX-USA clinical presentations

Facts and steps follow NBOME COMLEX-USA clinical presentations; NCCPA PANCE Content Blueprint; AAMC Core Entrustable Professional Activities (Core EPAs). VMS is not affiliated with these organizations. Updated: 2026-10-11.