Use Your Phone to Quit the Tobacco Habit

Physicians and psychotherapists are always trying to improve on the help they can offer people trying to quit smoking. The success rate is not good, and anything that can bump up the number of quitters is worth studying. A recent report in the Archives of Medicine describes the effects of adding telephone care to so-called ‘brief routine clinical intervention’.

Over 800 quitters were studied. Half received advice, medications, and information as part of their routine health care. The other half received telephone care in the form of regular behavioral counseling by phone, together with mailing of medications as necessary.

After 12 months, 4% the participants in the standard care group reported a 6-month period of quitting, compared with 13% of those in the telephone support group. Telephone care also increased the rate of participation in counsel programs and the use of smoking cessation medicines. It seems like a significant improvement in helping the quitters, even if the numbers are still disappointingly small.