St. Louis researchers test telephone counseling of smokers

ST. LOUIS -- One of the most popular New Year's resolutions is to quit smoking, but for many, those good intentions fade quickly.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are testing a method they hope will boost smokers' commitment to quit: telephone counseling.

The Call-2-Quit project is being funded by a $1.35 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over three years. It will compare two approaches to telephone counseling. Both methods will include information on how to quit smoking but will offer different counseling styles and cover some different topics.

The study will be open to smokers and their partners who are trying to quit and are employed by BJC HealthCare, which runs 13 hospitals, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. From there, the quit line could be offered to others, though no time frame has been established for that.

With the New Year, "a lot of people will decide to quit smoking, but all they'll do is decide. This will provide them with the tools to follow through with that decision," said psychologist Mark Walker, the study's principal investigator.

The program started with a pilot during the summer and began enrolling employees in November. Information is gathered about any employee wishing to take part. The person will then be called by a smoking coach, and the two will take part in seven calls lasting about 20 minutes each over 2 1/2 months.

They discuss a plan to quit smoking, such as setting a quit date, ways to find support, medication possibilities and how to overcome barriers to quitting.

Walker said as part of the study, some aspects will be different, such as the intervals between calls or providing the information through a looser or more structured delivery.

"We don't know that one condition will be more effective than the other," he said, noting the study could show that different approaches work best for different people.

Bill Blatt, the manager of tobacco control for the New York City-based American Lung Association, said telephone counseling lines have been popular in parts of the nation for about a decade and have largely been found to be an effective tool to help people quit smoking.

But that doesn't always hold true, Blatt said. Adolescents, for instance, don't call the help lines frequently, and he said there can be stumbling blocks if a caller doesn't speak English well or doesn't have easy access to a telephone.

"They are more effective than someone trying to quit cold turkey," he said.

In February, then-Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson supported a call by four former surgeon generals for a U.S. counseling and support telephone line for smokers trying to quit. The (800) QUIT-NOW line routes callers to state quit line programs or to another line in states that don't have such programs.