Quitline – a telephone based treatment for tobacco cessation

Unfortunately, self reported 12-month abstinence rate for motivated smokers trying to quit without assistance is only approximately 7%. [1] One way to assist smokers who want to quit is to establish telephone helplines (quitlines) easily available to all. Professionally run quitlines are effective in a real-world setting. [2,3] One randomized study showed that brief advice from physicians followed by telephone counselling from a nurse trained in smoking cessation was as effective as follow-up visits at the clinic. [4] Quitlines have proven to be comparable to cessation clinics in terms of proportion of smokers smoke free at 12 months [1-3] but are much more cost effective. [5] In general quitlines have been reported to enhance 12-month abstinence rates from 7% to approximately 30%. [6-9] The treatment protocol in most quitlines is a mixture of motivational interviewing, behaviour therapy, and pharmacological consultation. Qutiline numbers are presently printed on cigarette packages in many European countries as a part of the European health warning labels. Quitlines may offer a reactive service, meaning that counsellors initiated no contact but patients signing up for support are encouraged to call the service whenever they needed. Or a proactive service were patients signing up for treatment are offered a call up service. Many quitlines offer both reactive and proactive treatments and leave it up to the client to chose. In economics, cost-effectiveness refers to the comparison of the relative expenditure (costs) and outcomes (effects) associated with two or more courses of action. ... Motivational interviewing refers to a counseling approach developed by clinical psychologists Professor William R Miller, Ph. ... Behaviour therapy is a form of psychotherapy used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, and other forms of psychopathology. ... Pharmacology (in Greek: pharmacon is drug, and logos is science) is the study of how chemical substances interfere with living systems. ... This article is about electronics. ... This page is a candidate to be copied to Wiktionary using the Transwiki process. ...

References

1. Zhu S-H, Melcer T, Sun J, Rosbrook B, Pierce MS. Smoking cessation with and without assistance a population-based analysis. Am J Prev Med 2000;18(4):305-11.

2. Zhu S-H, Anderson CM, Tedeschi GJ, et al. Evidence of real-world effectiveness of a telephone quitline for smokers. N Engl J Med 2002;347(14):1087-93.

3. Helgason AR, Tomson T, Lund KE, Galanti R, Ahnve S, Gilljam H. Factors related to abstinence in a telephone helpline for smoking cessation. European J Public Health 2004: 14;306-310.

4. Wadland WC, Stöffelmayr B, Berger E, Crombach A, Ives K. Enhancing smoking cessation rates in primary care. J Fam Pract 1999;48(9):711-18.

5. Tomson T, Helgason AR, Gilljam H. Quitline in smoking cessation – a cost effectiveness analysis. Int J of Techn Ass in Health Care 2004 : 20;469-474.[1]

6. Fiore MC, Bailey WC, Cohen SJ, et al. Teating tobacco use and dependence. Clinical practice guideline. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, June 2000.

7. Stead LF, Lancaster T. Telephone counselling for smoking cessation. (Cochrane Review). In: The Cochrane Library, Issue 3, 2001. Oxford: Update Software.

8. Lichtenstein E, Glasgow RE, Lando HA, Ossip-Klein DJ, Boles SM. Telephone counseling for smoking cessation: rationales and meta-analytic review of evidence. Health Educ Res 1996;11:243-57.

9. Zhu S-H, Strecch V, Balabanis M, Rosbrook B, Sadler G, Pierce JP. Telephone counseling for smoking cessation: effects of single-session and multiple-session interventions. J Consult Clin Psychol 1996;64:202-11.