Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Gerard M Schippers¹  Regina M van der Meer²  Marc C Willemsen³ 

[1] Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;STIVORO, Dutch Expert Centre on Tobacco Control, The Hague, The Netherlands;STIVORO, Dutch Expert Centre on Tobacco Control, The Hague, The Netherlands;CAPHRI, Maastricht University, The Netherlands;

关键词: Nicotine;    Smoking Cessation;    Nicotine Replacement Therapy;    Heavy Smoker;    Action Stage;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-770

 received in 2010-07-05, accepted in 2010-12-18,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTelephone quitlines offer a wide range of services to callers, including advice and counsel, and information on pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation. But, little is known about what specific quitline services are offered to smokers and whether these services are appropriately matched to characteristics of smokers. This study examines how quitline services are matched to callers' level of addiction, educational level, stage-of-change with quitting, and whether they are referred by a doctor or other health professional.MethodsBetween February 2005 and April 2006, 3,585 callers to seven European quitlines responded to our survey. During the course of and immediately after the call, quitline counsellors collected descriptive data on callers' characteristics and the services they used. We then conducted four logistic regression analyses to examine the relationship between quitline services and the four caller characteristics.ResultsForty three percent of all callers received information on pharmacotherapy - most often nicotine patches and nicotine gum - from the counsellor. As we predicted, these callers were the heavy smokers. There was a direct correlation between the length of the conversations between the counsellor and the educational level of the smoker: the lower the education of the smoker, the shorter the call. However, we found no significant association between any other type of service and the educational level of caller. We also found a correlation between the smoker's stage of quitting and the type of advice a counsellor gives. Smokers in the action stage of quitting were more likely to receive advice (in two quitlines) or counselling (in two quitlines) than those in the preparation stage, who were less likely to be referred (in three quitlines). Very few of the total number of calls (10.7%) were from referrals by health professionals. Referred callers were more likely to receive counselling, but this was found only in four of seven quitlines.ConclusionMost of the services quitlines offer to smokers favour heavy smokers and those at a more advanced stage of cessation, but not based on their educational level. Thus, we recommend that European quitlines extend and tailor their services to include less-educated smokers.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Willemsen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.