The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: : It is not clear if having a single counselor or multiple counselors is more effective at helping someone in a smoking cessation effort. This report describes an analysis of the differences, measured by six-month quit rates, of having single or multiple counselors helping someone through a smoking cessation effort in a telephonic based Quitline.

Methods: National Jewish operates a telephone based Quitline for multiple States. Participants in the Quitline program are initially assigned to a single counselor. Because of time and scheduling issues, often a single counselor does not follow the individual through the smoking cessation program of 5 calls. Unless a specific counselor is requested by the participant, this allocation is a random process based on call volumes, as well as scheduling issues. We analyzed six-month smoking cessation rates of these two populations, in addition to analyzing quit rates for those receiving only one counseling call.

Results: The results of these analyses indicate the quit rate for those receiving only one counseling call was 21.54% +/- 2.73%. For those participants who received 2 or more calls, the quit rates for one counselor vs. multiple counselors were 26.88% +/- 4.35% and 23.37% +/- 2.21% respectively. The results of the two approaches were not statistically different. These data suggest that there is little difference in quit rates between having one or multiple counselors assisting in a smoking cessation effort.