Just five phone counseling sessions and two weeks of free nicotine patches doubled the rate of people who successfully quit smoking in a trial program in Portland, Ore.
In an experiment, 4614 callers to the Oregon Tobacco Quitline were offered either one 15-minute session of phone counseling and no nicotine replacement therapy, 30 minutes of therapy and one follow-up call or 30 minutes of therapy with four follow-up calls. Some callers were also offered a two week supply of nicotine replacement therapy.
More than 21 percent of callers who received five sessions of phone counseling and nicotine replacement therapy were able to abstain from smoking for 30 days compared with just 11.7 percent of those who only received only short counseling, 17 percent of those who received short counseling and nicotine replacement therapy, and 14 percent of those who received five counseling sessions but no nicotine replacement therapy. These callers also reported far higher rates of satisfaction (92.5 percent) with the quitline than those who only received short counseling (53.9 percent).