Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Multicomponent Interventions that Include Telephone Support

(2000 Archived Review)

Task Force Finding*

Patient telephone support interventions provide tobacco-product users with cessation counseling or assistance in attempting to quit and to maintain abstinence. Telephone support can be reactive (tobacco user initiates contact) or proactive (provider initiates contact or user initiates contact with provider-initiated follow-up). Techniques for delivery of telephone support include the use of trained counselors, health care providers, or taped messages in single or multiple sessions. Telephone support sessions usually follow a standardized protocol for providing advice and counseling. The telephone support component is usually combined with other interventions, such as patient educational materials, formal individual or group cessation counseling, or nicotine replacement therapies.

Multicomponent cessation interventions that include telephone support are strongly recommended by the Task Force based on a strong body of evidence that this combination intervention (1) increases patient tobacco cessation, and (2) is effective in both clinical settings and when implemented community-wide. It was not possible in this evaluation to determine the effect of the telephone support component alone. The minimum effective combination evaluated by the Task Force was community-wide, proactive telephone support (proactive follow-up) combined with patient education materials.

*From the following publication:

Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Recommendations regarding interventions to reduce tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. [PDF - 1.46KB] Am J Prev Med 2001;20(2S):10-5.

Review completed: May 2000