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

BACKGROUND: Telephone 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...

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Autores principales: Willemsen, Marc C, van der Meer, Regina M, Schippers, Gerard M
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020686/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167063
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-770
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author Willemsen, Marc C
van der Meer, Regina M
Schippers, Gerard M
author_facet Willemsen, Marc C
van der Meer, Regina M
Schippers, Gerard M
author_sort Willemsen, Marc C
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Telephone 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. METHODS: Between 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. RESULTS: Forty 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. CONCLUSION: Most 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.
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spelling pubmed-30206862011-01-14 Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics Willemsen, Marc C van der Meer, Regina M Schippers, Gerard M BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Telephone 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. METHODS: Between 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. RESULTS: Forty 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. CONCLUSION: Most 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. BioMed Central 2010-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3020686/ /pubmed/21167063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-770 Text en Copyright ©2010 Willemsen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (<url>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0</url>), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Willemsen, Marc C
van der Meer, Regina M
Schippers, Gerard M
Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title_full Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title_fullStr Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title_full_unstemmed Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title_short Smoking Cessation Quitlines in Europe: Matching Services to Callers' Characteristics
title_sort smoking cessation quitlines in europe: matching services to callers' characteristics
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020686/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21167063
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-770
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