The role of the quitline in the smoking cessation program

Abstract Objectives: The purpose of the study is the evaluation of the role of the quitlines in the smoking cessation programs. Methods: A follow-up was done 6 months after the call with a randomized sample (n = 117) extracted from the 654 calls received during 3 months. Each call lasts in average 21 minutes (SD = 15.3). The average age of the callers are 41,6 years old (SD = 12.5), 52% are men, 67% are married, and 31% have an university degree. Results: From a sample of 117 cases, we did 107 interviews and 103 were useful for analysis (4 refused and 10 cases lost were treated as smokers). Among these cases, 76% reported a change during the last 6 months (cessation or reduction) and 34% still maintain that change (20% had not smoked and 14% had reduced the amount of cigarettes smoked). Only 2% didn’t want to quit anymore and only 3% evaluated their call negatively. In the first follow-up 3 months after the first call, 84% evaluated the first call as useful, 14% as somehow useful and 3% as not useful. Conclusion: The Quitline has positive results. These results are promising and encourage us to continue this work in order to help smokers in their attempts to quit smoking besides the smoking cessation programs.