Outcomes of a One-Time Telephone Intervention for Smoking Cessation in Adults

Tobacco use is the single greatest cause of disease and premature death in America today. To address this major public health concern, states are required to provide smoking cessation services. The purpose of this article is to examine the effectiveness of a one-time telephone adult smoking cessation program designed by a certified addictions registered nurse-advanced practice and conducted over an 11-month period by the State of Nevada. Specifically, the program included a telephone-based counseling session and distribution of a 2-week supply of nicotine replacement therapy patches. The sample population consisted of 1471 Nevada residents, men and women, aged 18 years and over who called the Quitline for smoking cessation help. All participants in the program provided consent for a follow-up call to report on their quit rates and satisfaction with the intervention at 7 months postintervention. Although everyone who participated in the interventions was called, only 373 (25.4%) were actually reached via telephone contact. Of this group, quit rates showed that 34.6% reported continuous abstinence at 7 months, whereas 35.1% were abstinent at the 7-day point prevalence and 31.9% were abstinent at the 30-day point prevalence. Patient satisfaction with the program revealed that 87.6% (n = 373) of the participants reported being very or mostly satisfied. This program evaluation study shows that short-duration telephone counseling plus nicotine replacement therapy was associated with helping at least one third of the participants to quit using tobacco for all of the prevalence points-7 and 30 days and at 7 months postintervention.