Phone counseling helps smokers quit

The more help that smokers get, the easier it is for them to quit, a new study shows.

“It’s all about trying to make the whole process more convenient for people,” Dr. Lawrence C. An of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told Reuters Health. The current study, involving a group of veterans, demonstrates that standard medical care for smoking cessation is generally not enough, he added.

“Nobody expects a doctor to cure a patient with diabetes and hypertension in one visit,” An said. “That tends to be the way the health care system has dealt with smoking, and we’re really trying to change that.”

An and his team evaluated a telephone care program, in which 417 smokers spoke by telephone to trained counselors at least seven times over two months. The counselors helped the smokers develop a quitting plan, arranged for them to get prescriptions for anti-smoking medications and receive them through the mail, offered counseling and helped them find additional counseling help.

Another 420 smokers received standard care, meaning they got self-help publications on quitting smoking through the mail and their physicians may have spoken to them about quitting. They also had access to smoking cessation programs through the VA.

Three months after the beginning of the study, 39 percent of the telephone care participants reported having abstained from cigarettes for at least the past seven days, compared to 10 percent of the control group.

Study participants receiving telephone support also were much more likely to be taking anti-smoking medications and to be participating in counseling programs. They also made more quitting attempts.

An pointed out that the telephone counseling probably helped smokers keep trying to quit after early attempts failed. “If people are on their own, there’s nobody helping them, it’s easier for them to get discouraged and say ‘ah, forget it’,” he said.

A year after the program began, 13 percent of the participants in the telephone counseling program had quit smoking for at least six months, compared to 4 percent of those receiving standard care.

An advised that people who want to quit can access telephone counseling and other services by calling the National Network of Smoking Cessation Quitlines at 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Available services differ by state. “The big message from a study like ours is that when they’re trying to stop smoking they’re not alone,” An added. “There are lots of programs and services available to make this easier for them”

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, March 13, 2006.

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