Welcome to the new AFP Clinical Answers monthly email. We hope you enjoy this resource, which we’ve designed to provide quick, focused, evidence-based answers to key clinical questions, drawn from AFP articles. We welcome your feedback at [email protected]. – AFP Editors

The pretest probability of COVID-19 should be based on the patient’s exposure to someone with a confirmed or probable case, signs or symptoms of COVID-19, local or population-specific prevalence, and the presence of an alternate diagnosis. A negative molecular or antigen test result might not rule out COVID-19 infection when the pretest probability is high. Physicians should recommend isolation precautions regardless of a negative test result when the pretest probability is high; therefore, physicians should use a symptom-based approach for discontinuing isolation precautions for most patients. .

Patients using a combination of nicotine patch and fast-acting NRT are more likely to quit smoking than those on any single therapy alone (number needed to treat = 29). Rates of smoking cessation are not significantly different when directly comparing nicotine patches with fast-acting forms (e.g., lozenges, gum, inhalers, sprays), although dropout rates are higher with fast-acting forms. Rates of smoking cessation do not significantly differ among the various fast-acting forms. .

❯ ❯ AFP Clinical Answers distills evidence-based answers to clinical questions from AFP content for use at the point of care. Visit our  for more.

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Apply to be a Family Medicine Discovers scholar. Scholars receive $40,000 for practice-based research to generate new evidence for what works in real-world primary care settings. No research experience required. .