Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 31, Issue 4, October 2000, Pages 357-363
Preventive Medicine

Regular Article
Telephone Counseling as Adjuvant Treatment for Nicotine Replacement Therapy in a “Real-World” Setting,☆☆,

https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.2000.0720Get rights and content

Abstract

Background. Physicians prescribing nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), or health plans covering NRT, often want their patients to receive adjuvant behavioral treatment. However, how to do that in a “real world” is unclear. This paper reports results from a public health program that uses proactive telephone counseling as support for physician advice and provides adjuvant treatment for NRT users.

Methods. Participants were NRT users (N = 8,832) who called the California Smokers' Helpline, a statewide cessation service that provides proactive counseling, one session before NRT use and multisessions after the smokers received NRT. After receiving NRT, some participants discontinued the counseling while others continued with follow-up sessions. A subset of the 8,832 participants (n = 664) was interviewed 13 months later for quitting status.

Results. After receiving NRT, 79% of the participants continued with counseling and received 4.2 sessions on average, while 21% of them received only one session. Overall, 82.8% of all participants made a quit attempt. Nicotine patch users were more likely to make an attempt than nicotine gum users (85.2% vs 66.3%), but the relapse probability was the same for these attempts. Those who received multiple counseling were more likely to make an attempt than those receiving single counseling (84.4% vs 77.1%) and were more likely to stay quit for 1 year (25.6% vs 16.1%).

Conclusions. Proactive telephone counseling is a promising adjuvant treatment for NRT users in a “real-world” setting: a convenient referral service for supporting health plans or physicians who advise their patients to quit smoking.

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    This work is supported by funds received from the Tobacco Tax Health Protection Act of 1989, Proposition 99, under Grants 92-15416 and 96-27049 with the California Department of Health Services.

    ☆☆

    Part of this paper was presented in March 1998, at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in New Orleans. The authors thank Ted Melcer for his assistance in the preparation of an earlier draft of the paper and Susan Hian for her editorial assistance.

    To whom reprint requests should be addressed at the Cancer Center, 0905, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0905. Fax: (858) 713-1598. E-mail: [email protected].

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    To whom reprint requests should be addressed at the Cancer Center, 0905, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0905. Fax: (858) 713-1598. E-mail: [email protected].

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